raise their heads from reverence and fear before me; what gentle souls. I could not help crying secretly when Oito San, the old lady neighbour, said that Okuwa Sama-my mother's name-used to say she wished to die after having seen me once again.

How sweet is home!

I tasted the best thing ever I had in my life in a simple dinner which my mother prepared.

The president of the Tsushima Grammar School called on me at night, and wished me to make a speech before his students. The younger people of my street were all for giving a dinner in my honour. All the guests left my house at about ten o'clock. Before I went to bed, I was calmly rubbed by a shampooer.

I went to sleep to the lullaby of pine trees which the gentle winds sent to me; I knew it came from Kojoji, my neighbouring temple, and it was a familiar sound too.

HOME, 10th.

I was no other than Rip Van Winkle, only not so romantic as Joseph Jefferson's. I could not recognise even my elder brother who was waiting to receive me at the Yokohama station; and I will say too that the glance he cast upon me was perfectly in

different. We got in the same train toward Tokyo; at Shinbashi I found out that he was my brother Fujitaro, when he joined with a party in which I recognised at once Madame Isonaga, the lady who used to look after me with motherly care; the party was meant for my honour.

There is no wonder at all if I did not recognise even one person in my neighbouring houses, as I had not been home for over seventeen years. It was O Maki San, really -my neighbour's girl, who used to dress her hair in girlish mitsuwa or "three rings" in the dear old days-now the mother of three children. Who was that young man who said, "It's a long time now, Yone Sama-"? Why, he was Kii San, the son of the carpenter Hanroku San. He was only six or seven years old, when I was in my tenth or eleventh year; I used to take him with me to Rodo San's to be taught penmanship. He is not a boy now, but the proud father of two children. "Do you remember this picture of Daikoku Sama (God of Luck) you drew for me such a long time ago?"-thus I was addressed by one person; and he was Hikobey San's Hiko San, the child I loved best. I used to give him my pictures of orchid or chrysanthemum; and I remember now that I was once scolded

by my mother when I showed her a large piece of shuzumi or red ink which he gave me by way of acknowledgment of my pictures. "You mustn't receive anything from such a little child," my mother said; I remember it as if it were only yesterday. "You grew pretty large," I said. "Yes, I married last spring," he answered.

I am told that two young men of our street are at the front; and one of them has been wounded already, and now he is in the Nagoya hospital; and the other is the adopted son of the neighbour on the left hand. Although his mother-in-law patriotically submitted, saying, "It is for our country's sake," I could clearly espy her voiceless complaint; her daughter, the wife of her soldier son, is sick in bed while her two children cry. Oito San is a diligent person as my mother says; as I hear, she is working since morning on her loom for a new kimono; and I am sure it may be meant for her son on his safe return.

A while ago my father brought me an official announcement to read for him; it was to bid us make our presence to see the soldiers off to the front. Let us give them words of glory; they may be killed or wounded, if lucky.

Last night we all lighted our front gate

lanterns to express our joy over the Lio Yang victory. We do not make any noise even in joy; and are facing the war with such a silence which is only the voice of life and death.

Kami Sama or the gods do not undergo any worldly change of fortune; but at a time like this their glory reaches high water mark. It goes without saying that to say Kami Sama here at Tsushima means Gozu Tenno. The big wood fires will be burned right before the shrine all night; the daily worshippers, doubtless the relations of soldiers at the front, are said to be more than five hundred. A few sen will make you the happy possessor of an omamori or charm which will very likely protect your fighters from bad luck; and a special prayer will be given to you on your appeal.

This Tsushima is a slight town snugly lying as if on the bottom of a basin; but her dream has been stirred considerably by the establishment of a railroad station where the strange people from another part of the country flow out as if through a break in a dyke. The Middle School added a new dignity to the town; and the Tsushima Grammar School is said to be the model in this Aichi province. That school I can see from my upstairs window; and I have been looking with a