Yokohama. March 18. Friday Dearest Mother. I am just going to send you a telegram about our plans which have at last shaped themselves. I don't expect I shall be in England till the middle of June and I do hope you won't think me a pig about not coming back sooner for London, but up to now the weather has been so cold we cd make no real expeditions and it does seem a pity to see nothing of this country now we are here. I had a large mail yesterday, to my joy. Thank you so much, all of you, Moll and Papa and Hugo; if I don't answer each separately it is because I really haven't much time and most of my energies are taken up, so that I make one family letter do for all. I hope by the bye, that you carefully Bowdlerize my letters before you send them round! I am sure there must be many things in them that are only meant for my immediate family. I am very sorry Grandmamma has not been quite well; I wish I could bring her back a cure for rheumatism from Japan. Well, now as to our doings: We had a most successful day on Tuesday; it was bright and fine, we breakfasted at 7.30 and flew off an hour by train to Kamakura where Mr M. [Mainwaring] and I photographed in all the temples. Buddha looked magnificent in the sun and there is a charming garden in the temple of the goddess of Mercy, Kwannon, where we took pictures. While we were photographing Buddha, M. [Maurice] and Mr de R. [de Rutzen] went to the inn and got a large basket of cold lunch for us with which we all drove on to Enoshima, the Japanese Mont Saint Michel. The road was lovely, sheltered, warm, past shrines and villages all embowered in magnificent single red camellias; presently we came out onto the coast again and saw a little peninsular sticking out into the exquisite bay, with a long wooden bridge connecting it with the land. We left our rickshaws and walked over the long bridge and under a temple gate, this sort of thing [sketch] Torii they are called, up the shingle street of the village. The whole island is dedicated to the sea goddess, Benten, her shrines cover most of the top of it and the cave where lived the monstrous dragon that she killed, is a sort of crypt to it all. Our kuromaya (rickshaw man) led us us to a tea house on the top of the island where we were soon established on a matted floor with our own food and the tea house tea and a box of charcoal in front of us to keep our stockinged toes warm. The screens, house walls that is, were all thrown back and we could see a delicious miniature garden at our feet and away and away miles over Kamakura Bay and the mountains behind. After tiffin, when we had photographed our younger sister (i.e. chamber maid, Nei San is the Jap word) we payed our respects to Benten and were taken all through the Dragon Cave and shown numbers of shrines there. As we came back a gentleman offered to dive for shell fish; we agreed and in a moment the whole population of Enoshima appeared to me to be standing naked on the rocks! Next moment they were in the sea (and the best place it was for them!) but unfortunately they soon reappeared with nasty shelly fish and seaweed. We fled. We then returned to Kamakura, had tea in a tea house and got back to Yokohama at 5.30. I spent the evening talking to the Windelers who are old dears.

Wed 16. [16 March 1898] M. [Maurice] Mr de R. [de Rutzen] and I had a long ride in the morning all round and about in the country behind Yokohama. I rode Mr Walford's pony which is a charming little beast. After lunch we three and Mr Mainwaring went to the other end of Yokohama, through endless poky little streets to a famous porcelain man, Makudzu. We were shown into an exquisitely clean matted house in each room of which there were some 20 beautiful pieces of china. The maker of them sold to us. I bought two little pieces, and we were then served with tea in the most wonderful cups which he had also made. It was rainy so we then returned home.

Thurs 17. [17 March 1898] The first really fine hot day we have had - alas, it was delusive! We all went in the morning to another famous man, Goto by name, and cloisonnée is what he is famous for. He also lived at the end of nowhere. He showed us all over his factory and we saw the pots in all stages and the men working on them - quite a tiny place, but each man an artist in his way. It was extremely interesting. Mr Walford came to lunch after which he and I did a little shopping, most satisfactory. I ordered ½ a dozen of the most exquisite cotton kimonos to give to all my cousins - they cost 5/ each. We were all rather slack because of the sudden hot weather. Mr Plummer dined with us. I went to bed very early.

Fri 18. [18 March 1898] Grey and rainy and chill. Whether from the sudden changes of weather or what, I don't know, but I woke up feeling rather ill and got worse and worse all day. Nevertheless M [Maurice] and I went up to Tokyo and lunched with Captain Brinkley. He gave us the most elaborate lunch - which was dust and ashes to me! - in a lovely room, sort of semi Japanese, too exquisite. Mrs Brinkley is completely Japanese, talks no English and sits at the end of the table in her grey kimono, with a little intelligent air of interest, however, which makes one feel that she is in some way taking part in the conversation. There was a daughter, a bouncing handsome girl of 15 or so, with an English body and a Japanese face, not, I think the daughter of this wife. Captain Brinkley has had several Japanese wives - I don't know what he does with the old ones, we'll hope they die! He was extremely kind, told us to come to him if there was anything we wanted, talked politics most interestingly and covered his dining room with lovely prints and pictures for us to see. They were bought some 25 years ago when those things, which are now unprocurable, cost a few cents. When we got back to Yokohama we held a great and satisfactory counsel of war with a guide. M and I dined with Mr Walford; Mr Plummer and a man called Potts were there. It was a merry evening - if I had not felt so ill!

Sat 19. [19 March 1898] Still very bad, so we decided to put off our departure to Miyanoshita for a day. Mr Mainwaring and Mr de R. [de Rutzen] went off alone. I kept my sofa and sent for a doctor. It was grey and cold, so we didn't lose much. Mr Plummer and Mr Walford paid me visits in the afternoon and brought me books and papers and M [Maurice] got me little toys to amuse me.

Sun 20. [20 March 1898] Better. We left Yokohama at 11.30 and reached our journey's end at 1 - a lovely line, all along the coast. Then we took a tram and went on for another hour through delicious country. The only drawback was that we had left a packet of excellent chicken sandwiches in the hall of the hotel and we had nothing to eat! You can't possibly eat the things the Japs sell you in stations; they give you a charming little box, you open it and find it contains horrible mixtures of seaweed and raw fish - quite uneatable at the best of time. We managed to get two little buns, sweet and tasting of mush, not very nice, and the tea is always good. At the end of our tram journey we found Mr M. [Mainwaring] and Mr de R [de Rutzen] waiting for us, with tea in a tea house close at hand and flaming accounts of Miyanoshita - a most welcome sight they were. We got into Kuromas with 3 men each who ran along with us up the steepest valley for 4 miles at the top of which was Miyanoshita, the hotel looking all down the valley and away away right across Kamakura Bay, and on the other sides, steep beautiful bare mountains with here and there a grey thatched village nestling down among bamboos. Our rooms were ready, fires lighted and all our woes forgotten.

Mon 21. [21 March 1898] Fine weather with a little soft cloud hanging over the tops of the hills. We took 4 ponies and started off directly after breakfast with 4 coolies following us to see we didn't make off with the ponies (shaggy little brutes, but good 'uns to go - this applies to the men too!) and another gentleman with our tiffin slung at either end of a long bamboo pole which he carried over his shoulder. Mr M. [Mainwaring] had a very bad toothache, and presently decided to go back to Yokohama at once and have it seen to, so we 3 went on alone, rather saddened. We went up and up and to an extraordinary wild valley full of burning sulphur and springs of boiling water bubbling up. We got off and walked all about it. Then we rode down to a village at the foot of the hill, Myagino, and alighted at a tea house, where we spread out our tiffin in a sort of summer house by the edge of a stream, where we sat very contentedly with boxes of hot charcoal at our feet. We came home by a road along the bottom of the valley through lovely little villages and got in at 2 since when I have been resting as I am anything but well still. The notices in English are so funny, waiting room is house of cessation and at the bottom of the hill we were informed that our luggage wd be carefully and politely carried up to Miyanoshita!

Tues 22. [22 March 1898] We have had a charming day. M. [Maurice] Mr de R. [de Rutzen] and I were off on our ponies at 10.30 followed by the usual train of coolies and lunch carriers - you pay them 7d and they run after you the whole day. We rode over a bare wild pass, from which we had wonderful views and down bridle paths to a place called Hakone at the end of an exquisite lake. There we lunched at a tea house overlooking the lake. We then rode a couple of hours down the old high road between Tokyo and Kyoto, first between groves of bamboo and then through a long long avenue of cryptomerias; the valley magnificent, the road as steep as you please, paved with boulders, a regular breakneck staircase, and every now and then a great view of the sea Bellow us. We got down to the place where the tram, stops, Yumoto, caught Mr Mainwaring who had just arrived from Yokohama, and all rode up together getting in at 4. From which you see that I am better. It was so delightful to get a batch of letters from you the other day (I've said all this before, I see!) - I feel too far away to answer them! I'm glad the world likes Hafez - did Literature ever review me? I am very much obliged to Papa for paying my bills, but I think they might all have waited till I returned. He's a dear anyhow; tell him I shan't want any more money when I come home, I am buying my presents with Grandpapa's ú20. I feel rather homesick sometimes! it will be agreeable to see you all again. But this is a wonderful time. I have no energy to write to anyone but you. Love to all. Your affectionate daughter Gertrude