ABSTRACT
Daring all the earlier centuries Fuji San was truly and evidently the abode of fire; till at least the year 1100 the smoke never ceased to hang above the cone, and there were frequent outbursts of ashes and stones. The last great one was in the first years of the eighteenth century, when ashes fell six inches deep in Tokyo, sixty miles away as the crow flies, and vegetation was killed on all the upper part of the mountain, especially on the eastern side. Lady Parkes was the first woman who ever visited Fuji San; but she has had plenty of successors, for though it is a long and fatiguing trip, there is no danger and no particular difficulty in the climb. The goddess of Fuji was a purely Shinto deity, to begin with, and had a proper Shinto name of nine syllables, but the Buddhist authorities, adopted her and gave her a Buddhistic appellation, Sengen, and certain Buddhistic attributes.
