old Nonconformist, Max Eastman, who states it as an indubitable fact that 'The fundamental act of life is not judgment, but choice. It is not what people have decided, but what people want that is of original and divine impor tance' and Hunt made it unanimous. In the length and breadth of the Seven Seas there is no such beautiful and touching ceremony as that which accompanies the departure of a liner from the port of Honolulu. What is there about that gentle-souled people, the Hawaiians, doomed as they are to extinction, that so completely transcends our hustling, bustling success, our breed of 'go-getters'? What spirit is it that brings a bevy of pretty brown girls, a company of middle-aged, smiling women, a score of romping children down to the dock with their floral necklaces or leis to throw over the heads of departing passengers? The few coins they receive in return constitute no answer to the query. Why should 'Greeting and Farewell' mean more to a South-Sea Islander than to an Occidental? Please don't hand me out any cut-anddried replies. Imagine, if you can, the hawsers thrown off the pier, the great vessel slowly drawing out into the stream, that incomparable band of native musicians playing 'Aloha Oe' with a poignancy that would melt a heart of stone and the girls, women, and children throwing overboard. their wreaths of beautiful flowers to mingle with those thrown over by the passengers, until the surface of the water between the fast-receding ship and the pier is literally covered with them. 'Aloha Oe!' the last ‘Aloha: Greeting and Good-bye!' The surreptitious tears trickling down the cheeks of many a voyager on the deck of the Mongolia that morning proved conclusively that "The Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin.' We may go back to Honolulu some day and take an -- unlimited Inter-Island trip. We may go the limit in sightseeing from Kilauea's fiendish crater to that Gethsemane of the Archipelago, Molokai. We may plan a holiday that will leave no historical or ethnological question to be answered from the date of Captain Cook's discovery of the islands in 1798 down to the present - but 'Aloha Oe' will never again sound as it did that morning we pulled out of Honolulu Harbor for Japan, no matter how effectively it may be rendered. And it is worthy of record that in the ten months that followed, we never heard anything, anywhere, in the way of music that went quite so deep. Yes, when it comes to 'our little brown brother,' we'll take ours from Hawaii and you may have the Filipino and his saffron-hued neighbor the Jap. Even old Hunt acknowledged that it always 'got' him a bit — and we had to go topside and talk it all over. 'Well,' murmured one, 'let whoso make or buy, But fill me with the old familiar Juice, Methinks I might recover by and by.' 'Anyhow,' ejaculated Hunt, 'you know we never get any real fresh fruit until we touch Honolulu. We picked up some fine ripe pineapples. They taste pretty good when you dig out the inside, chop it up, and pack it back into the shell with just enough sherry to keep it from drying up on you and let it stand on ice overnight. "Tain't half bad for breakfast, along with a ripe alligator pear.' And I smote him where he sat because the bugle was blowing for luncheon and there was no time for further argument. CHAPTER II UNDER NIPPON'S SKIES And whoso will, from Pride released, About him at Kamakura. KIPLING ELEVEN glorious days of sailing under Orient skies from Honolulu. Days of dolce far niente, the first of utter relaxation, with a complete indifference to wind and tide, during which old embers were rekindled, old memories walked unbidden into the picture, and it was good to be alive. The 'Land of the Rising Sun' was close at hand, and to-morrow would find the Mongolia's mud-hook hugging the bottom of ancient Yedo Bay off Yokohama. We were scheduled for Hongkong, and we didn't know whether we should proceed with the steamer or stop over. Furthermore didn't much care. The immemorial East already had laid its hand on us and we were taken captive even before we had set foot on shore. we The Filipino band aboardship had fulfilled every expectation. Venturesome passengers, with a flair for risking a bit of cold cash, had dropped tidy sums playing fan-tan with a Chinese member of the crew who acted as dealer up in the ship's fo'c'sle. The raucous-voiced, leathery idiot who took it upon himself to retail the daily wireless news to the occupants of the deck chairs was silenced at last. The big sail filled with sea-water, in which we had taken our daily plunge up forward, had been taken in. We had done our best to be courteous to the few folk we had met en passant — and there were some exceedingly nice trav elers, too. But when one goes on a pilgrimage to the Bagdad of youth's dream, the principal road to take, yea, the only road, lies between the covers of a good book · and we had not less than a dozen to contribute to the ship's library when we left. 'Twas late on a sultry and hazy afternoon when the vessel came to anchor. We were trying to make up our minds whether to go ashore for dinner or stay aboardship, when the haze suddenly cleared away as by magic and the snowcapped, symmetrical summit of Fujiyama, Japan's sacred mountain, swept into view as if a vast curtain had been drawn to one side simply to display the exquisite picture. It lasted for but a few moments, the haze once more settling down over the landscape like a fog, blotting out everything but the dour and unattractive sea-front of the city beyond. That wonderful mountain view, brief though it was, settled the matter of our next move then and there. And here we had our first instance of the advantages of a go-as-you-please billet versus traveling in accordance with a hard-and-fast schedule. We packed up without delay and went ashore to one of the most comfortable and pleasant hotels it was our good fortune to find during our whole trip: The Grand. Pity 'tis that the terrible earthquake and fire of 1923 completely destroyed it, along with the few other attractions of that colorless city, Yokohama, leaving it as it is to-day, an unreconstructed mass of ruin, including the sea-wall, or bund, which has never been rebuilt. A rickshaw ride around the city before dark made it perfectly clear that we were not in the Japan of our expectation. Yokohama at that time resembled a cross between the Orient and the Occident that would have been rejected by both. Tawdry Theater Street, with its underworld atmosphere, wheezing talking-machines, and all-'round blowsiness, created an impression similar to that of certain sec tions of Paris: that it had been slung together for the especial delectation of those from 'furrin parts' having more money than brains. The only decent section of the city lay along the seafront where resident Europeans had their homes, churches, hotels, clubs, and banks. The native city, so to speak, lay far back from the bay and was about as representative of Japan as the notorious 'Hell's Kitchen' district is of New York City. Being a seaport, however, with its hotels fronting on the broad waters of the bay, and conveniently connected by electric lines with near-by places of interest (which it still is), it was a good place to settle down and, besides, Fuji was not far off, and we had determined on a pilgrimage to that famous mountain, not to mention. Kamakura, on the seashore a few miles away. Had we to do it all over again, we would not materially change our plans. Notwithstanding the ravages of the earthquake, the famous Tokaido Road, which was constructed in the eleventh century, connecting the ancient cities Yedo (the present-day Tokyo), Kyoto, and Osaka, a highway three hundred and fifty miles long, skirting the seacoast, still suffices for a motor trip to Miyanoshita and Lake Hakone if the traveler is willing to rough it a bit. This is also the route to Kamakura and Fujiyama, and it served during our trip as a rather bizarre forum for the display of certain startling Japanese characteristics, the memory of which still remains, indicating their peculiar attitude to the detested American. In every village along the road, little tots from four and five years upward, all of them wearing military caps, would run out from their homes and yell 'Banzai!' as the motor-car passed. And as if this were not sufficiently indicative of their feeling, children of a somewhat larger growth, full-grown men in fact, would walk to the |