It was four o'clock the next morning when we started. It was still dark. The stars were glorious. We knew the coming day would be superb. It was as yet too cold for riding, so, followed by our kago-bearers, we set forth on foot. For some time we walked on in silence, enraptured with the splendor of the sky. Above us gleamed the Dipper's seven diamond points; Orion's belt hung radiant amid a galaxy of other suns; while, just above a lofty mountain range, flashed with unwonted brilliancy the herald of approaching day. At length the stellar light began to pale. The east became first white, then golden, as the sun advanced, and then there came an hour's scenery that can never be effaced from my memory.
The colors on the mountains were magnificent. Autumnal foliage mantled them with glory. Thousands of oaks and maples lined the slopes with every shade of orange, red, vermilion, green, and purple. In any light these varied tints would have been beautiful; but to behold them changing into glory, tree by tree, as the first touch of dawn awakened them from sleep, was such a vision as we had never hoped to look upon. Some of this radiant foliage bedecked the ground, and sometimes we walked ankle-deep through multicolored leaves.
Moreover, the pathway was all white with frost, and stretched away in glittering perspective through the trees, like an avenue of silver between mountains of jewels. Intoxicated with such sights and with the crisp, aromatic air of that October dawn, we walked for miles without fatigue, unable to repress at times our exclamations of enthusiasm.
After a time, we found ourselves at the entrance to a deep ravine, shaded by giant trees, which at that early hour were still unburnished by the sun. In view of the reverence felt by the Japanese for massive rocks and time-gnarled trees, it is not strange that this wild gorge of Haruna has been for ages looked upon as sacred. A feeling of solemnity stole over us. Instinctively we spoke in softer tones. I felt as once before, when sailing into a Norwegian fjord. It was a place for Dante to describe and for Dore to illustrate.