Two smart palanquins had been provided for us and ordinary ones for our two attendants—Satow’s retainer, a Samurai named Noguchi, and my Chinese servant Lin Fu. A guard of twenty men armed with sword and dirk, long staves, and a crest of two paddles crossed, the badge of the Maéda family,[1] was to escort us, whether for show or for protection might be reckoned uncertain. They were, at any rate, of use in steering us through the crowds which in every small town, village, or cluster of houses were hustling for a first place to see the strange wild beasts. Hot as it was, so soon as we were out of the town we left the cramping discomforts of our palanquins and walked along the pretty valley trending in a south-westerly direction. The scenery was charming—here a lagoon, there a long stretch of seashore, and, above all, on the east the towering mountains of Echiu, said to be some ten thousand feet high, veritable “hills whose heads touch heaven.” Everywhere the characteristic forest foliage of Japan; and where is foliage more picturesquely beautiful? We passed along one stretch of sandy beach fringing a sea the dancing wavelets of which were as blue as the heaven above them, just the setting for one of those old world legends in which the Japanese delight. Such a legend is the story of the invention of the one-stringed lute, which might have been dear to Paganini, though it is not played with a bow. It is true that the scene of it lay far away in another province, but it seems to fit in here, for it came to my mind as we wandered along the romantic shore. Once upon a time, in the dark long ago, there was at the Court of Kiōto a Kugé, or noble, who was dearly loved by the Son of Heaven; but he had reason to say, “Put not your trust in princes;” like women, they are apt to change; in the caprice of a moment, the Kugé fell into disgrace and was banished to a lonely place called Suma, a distant village occupied by humble fisher-folk. Days and days he spent by the seaside, mourning over the happiness which seemed to have fled from him for ever. One morning on the beach he spied a water-worn board, a piece of jetsam from some perished junk which the ebbing tide had left upon the sand, and as he looked he wondered, and said to himself, for he was well skilled in art, “Perhaps even this poor old piece of wreck may have music in it, had I but the skill to draw out its soul.” So he pondered and racked his brain to think how if it were fitted with a string and bridge the intervals should be distanced. Remaining buried in thought, he of a sudden saw a little flight of sandpipers who came and settled upon the beach near him, making a pattern which seemed to him to have some mystic meaning in it, and he wondered whether if he were to copy it on his piece of board it might be the solution of his problem. When he put it to the test he discovered to his joy that he had found the one-stringed lute which to this day is known as Sumagoto, the harp of Suma.