And faintly echoing from above came the answer: “To the top ... the top ... top.” * * * * * And still the first stations succeeded one another, and the tired feet and the aching muscles grew more weary. The wood was dense as ever, but less steep, and at last there came earth as well as tree-roots for a pathway. We passed through another station, half tea-house, half temple, where a man sat behind a tray of thin irons stamped with the temple’s crest, and where gods and tea-bowls filled the shelves. The path went through it and out again, under the trees, a path of good stamped earth. Then twisting suddenly it ended in four smooth green steps that led down into a natural amphitheatre, with tea-houses on each side. This was the _Mma gaeshi_--“horse-turn-back” station--Yoshida side. Away to the left were several square boxes on wheels, otherwise the stage was empty. It was, indeed, exactly like a “set” in an opera. We hobbled, it was so difficult to walk on _flat_ earth, to a tea-house and sat down demanding _basha_. Slowly a man entered right front, and crossing left centre tipped up a square box and waited. Then another man, entering left front, harnessed a horse to it. This took them half an hour, because they wanted four times too much for the drive to Yoshida, and at each refusal, at each expostulation, at each rebate, the one man dropped the square box down on the ground and the other gave up harnessing the horse. Meanwhile we drank tea and monotonously repeated our price. After half an hour the _basha_ was finally harnessed, and crossing left front we got in. This _basha_ was simply a square box without a lid, mounted on wheels. You sat on a piece of matting spread at the bottom, leant against the wooden back and clutched hard at the sides to keep yourself in. The driver sat on the shaft and used his feet as a brake. The reins consisted of one length of straw rope attached to the left side of the horse’s head. For the first half-hour the relief of stretching out one’s miserable, trembling legs was pure bliss, after that, _basha_-driving was pleasant but jolty, and after that it became renewed torture to endure the jolting, and the aches in one’s back and arms were vigorous and persistent. Road there was none, only two large ruts, in, over and among which we wandered. The trees stopped as abruptly above the natural amphitheatre of _Mma gaeshi_ as they had begun below the platform of No. 4. And for the whole two hours of our journey to Yoshida we travelled over an immense far-reaching common, one of the soft ripples at Fuji’s base. There was not a house or a village to be seen, nothing but the wide stretch of green common.