“Even a Kappa gets drowned sometimes,”[1] protested Otokichi. “There was a man of this village who swam home a distance of seven ri, in bad weather, after his boat had been broken. But he was drowned afterwards.” [1] This is a common proverb:—_Kappa mo oboré-shini_. The Kappa is a water-goblin, haunting rivers especially. Seven _ri_ means a trifle less than eighteen miles. I asked if any of the young men now in the settlement could do as much. “Probably some might,” the old man replied. “There are many strong swimmers. All swim here,—even the little children. But when fisher-folk swim like that, it is only to save their lives.” “Or to make love,” the wife added,—“like the Hashima girl.” “Who?” queried I. “A fisherman’s daughter,” said Otokichi. “She had a lover in Ajiro, several _ri_ distant; and she used to swim to him at night, and swim back in the morning. He kept a light burning to guide her. But one dark night the light was neglected—or blown out; and she lost her way, and was drowned…. The story is famous in Idzu.” —“So,” I said to myself, “in the Far East, it is poor Hero that does the swimming. And what, under such circumstances, would have been the Western estimate of Leander?” III Usually about the time of the Bon, the sea gets rough; and I was not surprised to find next morning that the surf was running high. All day it grew. By the middle of the afternoon, the waves had become wonderful; and I sat on the sea-wall, and watched them until sundown. It was a long slow rolling,—massive and formidable. Sometimes, just before breaking, a towering swell would crack all its green length with a tinkle as of shivering glass; then would fall and flatten with a peal that shook the wall beneath me…. I thought of the great dead Russian general who made his army to storm as a sea,—wave upon wave of steel,—thunder following thunder…. There was yet scarcely any wind; but there must have been wild weather elsewhere,—and the breakers were steadily heightening. Their motion fascinated. How indescribably complex such motion is,—yet how eternally new! Who could fully describe even five minutes of it? No mortal ever saw two waves break in exactly the same way. And probably no mortal ever watched the ocean-roll or heard its thunder without feeling serious. I have noticed that even animals,—horses and cows,—become meditative in the presence of the sea: they stand and stare and listen as if the sight and sound of that immensity made them forget all else in the world.