MATSUE, January, 1891.
DEAR PROFESSOR CHAMBERLAIN,--I am sorry not to have heard
from you,--fearing you may have been ill. The weather here has become
something very disagreeable--I was going to say infernal; but I think
this word better describes the weather of the North Atlantic Coast. The
changes of temperature here are less extreme, the cold is milder, but
the temperature may change three times in twenty-four hours,--which
seems to me extraordinary. There is almost perpetual rain and gloom, and
I would almost dislike Izumo were it not that one lovely day in a month
is enough to make me forgive and forget all the bad weather. The "Izumo
Fuji"--Dai sen (which is not, however, in Izumo at all)--was beautifully
visible the day before yesterday, and the landscape was unspeakably
beautiful.
I am now arranging, as best I can, to get the fire-drill model made in
Kizuki. My friends have been ill and my best friend, Mr. Nishida, is
still so ill that he cannot travel with me. But I think the drill can
be made very soon now. I have a passport for all Izumo; but the weather
is diabolical; and though my chest is very strong, I feel that it is
a severe strain to keep well even at home. So I shall not travel much
before the summer.
I send you some clean new "fire-insurance mamori." I found out only two
weeks ago where they are sold,--at the great Inari temple in the grounds
of Matsue Castle, where there are enormous stone foxes, and perhaps
two thousand small foxes sitting all round the court with their tails
perpendicularly elevated. The most extraordinary thing of the kind I
ever saw. They showed me at the temple a _kakemono_ of a ghostly fox,
with a phosphoric jewel in its tail,--said to have been painted ages
ago. I think I shall buy it from them. It is not beautiful, but quite
curious.