Beyond the third monastery the gorge becomes wider and less fantastic, the forest thinner, allowing scattered glimpses of the sky, and finally some long zigzags take the traveller up to the open grassy summit of the An-mun-chai, on which plums, pears, cherries, blush azaleas, and pink rhododendrons, which had long ceased blooming below, were in their first flush of beauty. To the west the difficult country of the previous week’s journey, gray granite, deep valleys, and tiger-haunted forest faded into a veil of blue, and in the east, over diminishing forest-covered ranges, gleamed the blue Sea of Japan, more than 4,000 feet below. On the eastern descent there are gigantic pines and firs, some of them ruthlessly barked, and the long dependent streamers of the gray-green _Lycopodium Sieboldii_ with which they are festooned, give the forest a funereal aspect. Of this the peculiar fringed hats are made which are worn on occasion by both monks and nuns. After many downward zigzags, the track enters another rocky gorge with a fine torrent, in the bed of which are huge “potholes,” shown as the bathing-places of dragons, whose habits must have been much cleanlier than those of the present inhabitants of the land. The great monastery of Yu-chöm Sa, with its many curved roofs and general look of newness and wealth, is approached by crossing a very tolerable bridge. The road, which passes through a well-kept burial-ground, where the ashes of the pious and learned abbots of several centuries repose under more or less stately monuments, was much encumbered near the monastery by great pine logs newly hewn for its restoration, which was being carried out on a very expensive scale. The monks made a difficulty about receiving us, and it was not till after some delay, and the production of my _kwan-ja_, that we were allotted rooms in the Government buildings for the two days of our halt. After this small difficulty, they were unusually kind and friendly, and one of the young priests, who came over the An-mun-chai with us, offered Mr. Miller the use of his cell on Sunday, saying that “it would be a quieter place than the great room to study his belief”!