ABSTRACT
MISTS curling about the sharp-edged mountains that tower from the sea and gently falling rain from a gray sky seem more characteristic of Japan than does sunshine. Statistics tell the tale of how, in normal years, one city averages two hundred twenty-six wet days and the driest of all has one hundred forty-five days of rain. They who knew Tokyo or Kyoto or other spots before sidewalks came and when the streets were often veritable seas of mud were provoked into believing that the Japanese should adopt as their national emblem the umbrella and the high wooden geta that raise them above the slushy puddles of the thoroughfare.
