Some of the houses on the Bluff are quite attractive; and life in them must be in many respects delightful. We met here two American ladies, who, having taken a furnished house for several months, were actually housekeeping in Japan. They told us that they had never had so pleasant an experience, and that the markets of Yokohama abounded in meat, fish, fruit, and vegetables, all at reasonable prices, while their Japanese servants had been so devoted and respectful that they were spoiled for housekeeping with any others. The summer, they confessed, had been hot, and varied by an occasional earthquake; but on the Bluff the air was pure and cool, and they had at least been exempt from thunder-storms.

Yet Yokohama's climate is not always tropical, or even mild. Winter also can assert itself here, and boats and buildings sometimes wear a robe of snow. Such a wintry temperature makes, of course, little difference in the comfort of foreigners; but, to the Japanese themselves, one might suppose the winter months would be a season of protracted misery, since the vast majority of the natives have no fire in their houses save that in a charcoal brazier; the partitions in their dwellings are mere paper screens; and they themselves rarely wear woolen garments, much less flannel ones. Yet the people are hardy. Jinrikisha men, we were told, will run about the snow-covered streets with only cotton sandals on their feet.

A Residence On The Bluff.

"How can your people live thus thinly clad, and with so little fire?" we asked our guide.

"Oh, they become used to it," he answered. "You never cover up your face in winter. It is accustomed to the cold. So we subject our bodies to the same endurance."

One day, in strolling through a street in Yokohama, we came upon two little Japanese women doing laundry work and spreading garments out to dry upon a smooth, flat board. Following the pleasant custom of the country, they laughingly called out to us, "Ohaio - Ohaio," - the Japanese expression for "Good Morning!" One of our party, a judge from Covington, Kentucky, did not understand the meaning of that word. Accordingly, when one of these Japanese maidens smiled sweetly in his face, and said, with a slightly rising inflection, "Ohaio!" he faltered, and replied, "Well, not exactly; I come from Covington, just across the river!"

Yokohama In" Winter.

On The Way To Kamakura.

The foreign cemetery of Yokohama is beautifully situated on the Bluff, above the tumult of the town. It is well kept, and many of its monuments are elaborate. Numerous epitaphs in English, French, German, and Italian attest the cosmopolitan character of the place. As we were walking there one Sunday afternoon, we met a lady deeply veiled, leaning upon her husband's arm, and giving way to uncontrollable grief. When they were gone we ventured to approach the grave which they had left. The tombstone bore a recent date, and on it were four lines that deeply moved us by their sad simplicity; for, stooping down to a low headstone wreathed in flowers, we read these words:

"A little grave, but oh, have care, For world - wide hopes are lying there; How much of light, how much of joy Are buried with a darling boy!"

The day after our arrival in Yokohama, we drove out into the surrounding country.

A Japanese Cemetery.

Path To The Shogun's Grave.

The Foreign Cemetery, Yokohama.

It was historically very interesting. Upon the plain where we saw laborers harvesting their crops, once stood the ancient capital of the empire, - Kamakura. It was then the residence of a million people, and was, no doubt, a scene of splendor, war, and intrigue; yet of the men and deeds which moved it centuries ago we know comparatively nothing. We sometimes think ourselves familiar with the history of our race; and so we are, along the lines of Egypt, Rome, and mediaeval Europe. But when the traveler visits China, India,and Japan, he realizes the fact that he has come to the other side of the globe, to lands whose histories are more remote than those of even Greece and Rome, and yet utterly distinct from all the streams of civilization which have flowed toward him. He begins to feel as men might who, having always thought the Rhine to be the only river of any magnitude on earth, should suddenly find themselves beside the Nile, whose mighty volume has been rolling onward for unnumbered ages, and over whose distant origin there hangs the halo of mystery.