by the rather surprising name of "gills" (go); the first "gill" being just within the mountain's portal, and the tenth welcoming the pilgrim at the top. Amid much that is passing strange in the Japanese method of mountaineering, this startlingly liquid measure for a painfully waterless slope is perhaps the strangest; for it is not the rest-houses that are so designated, but the path itself with what, considering its distressingly dry condition, must be thought very ill-placed humor. In explanation it is said that mountains are likened to heaps of spilled rice, the measure being one for both rice and liquids, and reckoned at a sho, or three pints, quite irrespective of size. The length of the path, by an easy extension, is called a quart and a half, and then divided into tenths, each of which becomes a gill.
Shrines beside the path are almost as numerous as rest-houses. Temples also are not wanting. There are several at the bottom, one at the top, and often others between, for though there be few on the flanks themselves, the foot of a mountain is of indefinite length. Untenanted by priests, they all stand open to the public, and the cords of
