We slept beneath our transparent tent, in our wall-less room, as the flowers sleep, part of the living night. All the little sounds of leaf and lake stirred round us undisturbed; the rice-ears rustled in the silent night; the great trees stretched their branches as they slept. Dreaming, the waters of the salt lagoon moved towards the sea, and all the wealth of insect life, turning in its sleep, called faintly. The still small voice of the sky whispered softly in the breezes, and the great green Earth reached up to listen through her dreams. Bound in the chains of man, it is at night-time that she stirs so restless, when all the humming, conscious life is laid to sleep, when men and insects slumber. Then the green Earth wakes; but she has endured so long that even in her waking she is half asleep. Bound down with streets and houses, she never wakes at all. And so all night we listened to the voices of the world. At the dawning, when all Nature stands hushed before the coming of the sun, we slept. But the dawning in this southern land is short and swift. With no clouds to dim his strength, the sun soon sat flaming on his wide blue throne; and all the insects of the tropics, warmed into life, rose up to buzz and hum. And we awoke. * * * * * In the Land of the Gods there are no clocks, and although one in the main street of Matsué proclaimed its “foreign” time, the inhabitants beneath go their own way, and the baby steamers arrive and depart in open disregard of the hours upon the dial. So some time between the dawning and the noon we woke. The house was getting up. All the little sounds of rising men and women, of a day’s beginning, were about us, so we got up too. Crawling from under our vast green tent, we went down the polished passage-way to the inner courtyard, where in a cool green cloister all the rooms of the inn looked out. A long stone font filled with water, a hanging wooden dipper, a row of shallow brass pans on a wooden shelf stood waiting. Here the whole inn washes. With water from the font, cool and fresh from its night’s sleep in the grey stone basin, you fill the bamboo dipper and pour out into the shallow pans; and then, standing in the passage-way, with all the rooms around you, you wash. And unless a _nēsan_, attracted by the whiteness of your skin, should stop a moment to look and wonder, no one is interested. The usual lengths of cotton towelling hung beside the dipper, like banners on their poles; and a crevice of sunshine piercing into the green courtyard quivered on the round brass pans. Tent and _futon_ had vanished when we returned, and the two little goggle-eyed girls, still with their blue _kimono_ tucked up to show the red ones underneath, were sweeping the matting with bamboo brooms. We dressed in corners unattended, and sat down to wait.