he had on his face, and with that object in view he quietly betook himself to the hollow tree and waited for the devils. By and by they came, sat down, drank, and made sport as before, whereupon he crept out, and being invited to dance, began to caper in emulation of his neighbor; but whether it was the merry imps saw through the trick, or that the dancing was really inferior, I can't say; but at all events they criticised the dancer severely, and at last pretending to mistake him for the first old man, they said, "We don't care for any more such dancing, and we will give you back your lump which we took from you"; saying which, they clapped the wood-cutter's wen on the side of his face, opposite his own wen, and sent him home thus symmetrically adorned, like “a basket with two handles," as the French say of a gentleman overweighted with feminine helplessness — having a lady on each arm. Our picture shows one of the facetious devils with the wen in hand, and another surveying it with an expression of concentration. Such "make-ups" would insure the success of almost any Caliban.

The second story is called The Matsuyama Looking-glass, and relates how, once upon a time, there lived in the quiet country, far from busy crowds, a couple who had one little daughter whom they dearly loved. They lived in Matsuyama, in the province called Echigo, and one day the father found himself obliged to go to the city by himself, and he bade his wife and his little girl good by, promising to bring back some nice presents for them on his return. The former, who had never been away from home, felt some trepidation to think of the long journey her husband was to take, such a journey as none of the neighbors had ever taken. And so at last when he came back he met with a joyful reception; his wife and child were in their best clothes, and the little one could hardly contain herself when she saw the playthings her papa had brought her. "For you," he said to his wife, "I have brought a beautiful thing, —a looking-glass. See for yourself what it is." She opened the neat box, and there was a round white piece of metal, with wonderful birds and flowers carved upon it, and upon the other side there was nothing; but it glistened like a ball of crystal, and behold, when she looked at it nearer, there was a laugh

ing, friendly face, with bright eyes looking directly at her. "What is it?" said her husband, delighted to be able to surprise her; for indeed she had never seen before, much less owned, such a thing as this. She said, "I see a pretty woman smiling upon me, and I declare, she is dressed just like me." "You goose! it is your own little face you see," rejoined the husband. "Everybody in the city has these lookingglasses, though we have never seen them here." The good wife was glad of her present and could hardly admire it enough, or indeed the novelty of her own charming face; but after a time it seemed too valuable to be used always, and as she was not vain, she concluded to put it away with her valuables, which she did accordingly. Years went by, and the husband and wife and their daughter, who grew up in the likeness of her mother, were very happy together, and the daughter was as good as she was lovely, making everybody fond of her. As for the mirror, the mother never spoke of it, wishing her girl to keep her maidenly modesty and to remain unconscious of her good looks. But one day a great trouble came to this little household. The dear mother fell sick; and though everything was done that could be done for her, she grew worse, until all hope of her life was gone. When she understood this, and that the happy family must be separated, grieving most for those she must leave and that they should see her face no more, she said to her daughter: "My precious child, you see that I am so sick that I can't be very long with your father and you, and I wish you to promise me that when I am no longer here, you will look into this mirror in this box each morning and every night, and there you will see me, and know that I am still near you, and still guarding you." Then she gave the box to her, and the daughter tearfully gave her the promise, and the mother soon after died, quiet and resigned. Each morning and each evening the dutiful daughter looked into the mirror and was overjoyed to see there her mother's beloved face, as she had said, no longer pale and wan, but as it used to be when she first remembered it. In the morning she hastened to greet it when she rose from bed, and the last thing she did was to bid it "good night," as she rehearsed the little troubles and incidents of the day; and so

she seemed to herself to live always in her mother's sight, never forgetting to please her and to consider her as she had formerly done. At last, her father hearing her continually talking to herself before the glass, began to wonder what was the matter, and asked her what she was doing. Then she told him of the promise she had made and how she had fulfilled it; and he, touched to the heart by her affectionate devotion, could not make up his mind to undeceive her, seeing how she was indeed becoming more and more the image of her mother. The Japanese standard of womanly beauty-higher than we are apt to suppose is not realized in the present woodcut, but I think the naturalness and expression of the figures, the suggestion of family affection, and of the child's welcome,

are excellent, and in the literal sense preraphaelitic, while the drawing is at least as good as that of the early Italian artists.

I would gladly linger over my theme, and describe the toys, personal ornaments, the code of flower-decoration, furniture and utensils, all full of national individuality and interest. It will be seen that in the conditions of the popular art of Japan there is a suggestion for a genuine democratic art for ourselves in the future, free from snobbery and vulgar standards, and illuminated by the light of our Christian civilization. But such art cannot begin to be till we are willing to educate ourselves and to be educated, recognizing the fact that true feeling and knowledge are only to be had by patient observation and study of both nature and art.

long time to load a coach at a country station, and the driver checks over each piece of baggage he receives from the express agent with a conscientiousness which a hungry traveller may be forgiven for not always admiring. At last the horses are whipped up; the agent rushes out to ask the irrelevant question about "Jo"; the driver guesses he is "all right"; the leaders wheel slowly around; the wheelers get a touch of the lash; and we are off.

To one who has never been in the Adirondacks before, this first ride on the roof of a heavy, lumbering, old-fashioned coach is a revelation. He thought perhaps that the railroad had relegated stage-coaches to the limbo of oblivion. Not so, however. The railroad takes one to the Adirondacks; the stage-coach takes one into the Adirondacks. As yet the difficulties of building a road through the mountains have kept secure the privilege here presented of slipping back into the early days of the century. And who does not love to ride on the top of a coach? Who does not love to hear the sharp crack of the driver's whip as it circles over the leaders' flanks, and feel the coach dip and sway under the sudden impetus of the horses' plunge forward? Where is the man whose blood has not tingled in his veins, and who has not lamented the good old days, as he read Dickens's famous description of the ride from York to London? Of course the railroad is more convenient than the coach, friend, but the coach is a glorious institution still in this region. It blows the cobwebs out of one to sit there, holding on with both hands and feet as the coach rocks and sways, with the wind blowing the hair about one's eyes, cool and invigorating from the mountains. Up we go, down we go. Now slowly climbing a steep hill, with the horses straining, and foaming at the mouth; now on the summit, the chain traces and whiffletrees relaxed and clanking, the road stretching away in front, and suddenly breaking off short in what appears to be an impenetrable clump of trees. Slowly we go forward; there is a turn in the road, and then it seems to break away, and what looks like a sheer precipice confronts us. The horses plod cautiously down, the coach follows with a lurch, and the driver gathers up his ribbons tightly and puts his foot heavily on the brake. The hill is not so steep as it

looked, and as it makes an abrupt turn to the right, we cross a noisy little stream, the loose planks of the bridge sending out a clatter of sharp harmonics, descending the scale, as we cross. The worst of the hill is over, the pace is slightly accelerated, the skid sends out another shower of sparks, and a cloud of dust flies in our wake. The road takes another sharp turn to the left, and we plunge into a grove of tall dark trees, through which the sun shines in patches, on the shifting, shadowy etchings in the road.

One cannot fairly claim to have seen the Adirondacks by simply taking up one's quarters in a fashionable hotel for the summer, and never going further away from it than the post-office. A great many people do this every year, and they tell you when they return to town that they have "done" the Adirondacks; and they think them "so rugged" and "imposingly grand," and all that. The occupations of many estimable people at the hotels indicate they bring their city habits with them in their trunks. I remember a little party of four-an eminent judge, a wealthy manufacturer, a broker, and a railroad king

who played poker regularly from nine in the morning until all hours of the night.

In the matter of diamonds, the young lady from the progressive West is preeminent. She comes down to breakfast ablaze with them. She wears diamonds on her fingers, in her hair, her ears, her corsage, and even in the buckles of her dainty morning shoes. Fashion has set its seal upon the wilderness, and there is now almost as much display in the Adirondacks as at the fashionable seaside resorts. after all, there is less conventionalism, and the hotels are all crowded with pretty girls,

But

And

lively and vivacious, as the American girl ever is. They show a noble disregard of freckles and sunburn, and are out of doors almost every hour of the day. their costumes, they are too bewildering for any ordinary mortal to attempt to describe. In the morning they are all angels in white or cream stuffs; at noon they belong exclusively to this world, in bewitching tennis and boating gowns and caps; and after sundown they are visitants from dreamland in white and dark gauzy clinging draperies, which seem to have been made on fairy looms.

But the true lovers of nature cannot

afford to be fashionable in the Adirondacks. Too many changes of costume necessitate a superabundance of baggage, and are an impediment to travel. The only way to properly see the Adirondacks and to understand what Murray and the rest have found to write about, and why the Adirondacks are famous, is to go through the range leisurely on the top of a coach.

Any one who imagines that America lacks the element of picturesqueness, which is supposed to be what draws hundreds of thousands of good Americans to Europe every summer, can never have penetrated the Adirondacks. Such a person must be among those epicurean travellers to whom the table appeals more than the mountains, and who, dissatisfied with the menu at the Elizabethtown hotels, turn back to Saratoga. Of course the hotels are modern, that is, more or less modern, and in many respects are monstrously similar; but then, picturesque exteriors rarely accompany comfortable interiors; they are more frequently advertisements of draughts and influenza. Altogether, one can dispense with the picturesqueness in one's hotel, especially in this region, where the temperature is somewhat variable, and where the evenings are often chilly in the middle of August, and wraps and overcoats are indispensable. But the villages one passes through are not oppressively commonplace, as the Anglomaniacs declare them to be. There is at least an atmosphere of contentment and quiet about the streets and the inhabitants, which reminds one of Goldsmith's "sweet Auburn," and the architecture, if not strikingly original, is of that rough simplicity which is soothing and pleasing and, in fact, picturesque. It certainly lacks variety, but the element of cosey comfort- the home look is obvious. These cottages, with their long, low, open verandas filled with rockers and hammocks, their pine-log porches, low roofs, and rough log outbuildings, are in as thorough correspondence with the wild, grand landscape here as are the quaint, rambling inns, with their swaying signs and thatched roofs, with the subdued air of an English landscape, in which art is as present as nature. The principal features in an Adirondack landscape are the dark, frowning hills, the deep ravines, the gloomy, menacing groves of trees, which seem to swallow up the mountain road, and the tur

bulent rapids and falls, mocking their turnkeys of granite as they race between them. In England one feels at every turn that Nature is in subjection. Here she is triumphant.

The mountains have as many moods as the sea. They never look the same for an hour together; they even seem to change their forms. This is a land of glorious sunrises and sunsets. The mountains close in upon us on every side, although the road worms its way through them like a corkscrew. It is just dawn. All is gray and forbidding. Then the sun breaks out; a hundred perpendicular slopes are illumined with the shifting sunlight, and a thousand sharp crevices in which the sunlight plays refract the light in indescribable tints, relieving the dull, grayish, bare rock which shows through in places; while the whole is accentuated by the dark pines in the valley below. Then the clouds which have been hovering around the middle of the peaks slowly lift, the little dells and valleys in the slope become more distinctly visible, the air grows warmer and heavier, and the summits are lost. But only the brush of a Turner could attempt the task of reproducing the glories of a sunrise or sunset in these mountains. The golden purples and crimsons and the livid hues of dawn must be caught in an instant with a few happy strokes of genius, or they are gone. forever. It is an hour of mystery, one that awakens the poetry latent in all men's breasts, whether they be singers or not. And then the day is born. The man who has not wandered alone through the woods and felt that he belonged to another world has not lived his life to the full. Every man not irrevocably chained to the car of the commonplace is a poet in the woods.

Every point of interest in the Adirondacks can be reached by stage, and the road in every direction leads through the woods. At one time it is winding its serpentine course through the undulant forest in the valley; at another it is climbing tortuously the steep sides of a mountain ; and the stage toils up beneath the towering, threatening rocks along a ledge so narrow that two vehicles could not possibly pass upon it. Below, above the sighing of the trees, arises the murmurous music of a stream, as it runs chattering through the valley. The air is pure and balmy with the fragrant perfume of spruce and balsam,