Hakone, Miyanoshita, Mt. Fuji, along the Tokaido

“There was a delightful feeling of novelty in all we saw; every object claimed our attention by the quite irresistible charm of never having been seen before. The quaintly picturesque landscape; the little villages dotted here and there; the curious outlandish appearance of their inhabitants, so strangely foreign to English eyes; the luxuriant wealth of summer foliage just warming into the more mellowed brilliancy of early autumn—all cast a spell over us, a spell the extent of whose fascination was none the less charming by being drawn from hidden well-springs reaching far back into the past. Every turn of the undulating road contained fresh surprises, every crest of overtopping hill prepared unimagined delights, every leafy barrier concealed long vistas of unfamiliar country stretching on and on, all full of unknown pleasures, all waiting patiently in the warm sunlight for us to come and make their acquaintance.”

Gilbert Watson, Three Rolling Stones in Japan, (London, 1904) p. 166