The New Student's Reference Work/Fusiyama

Fusiyama or Fujiyama (fo͞o′jē̇ -yä′mȧ), a sacred volcano, the loftiest mountain of Japan, stands on the main island, about 60 miles southwest of Tokio. It rises some 12,200 feet above the sea, with a crater 500 feet deep. Its last eruption was in 1707. The cone is free from snow only from July to September, when thousands of white-robed Buddhist pilgrims make the ascent easily enough. A traveler visiting Japan was asked: “Have you seen it?” “What?” he said. “Oh, it; when you see it, you will know it.” And one day when the clouds that had been covering the sky broke away, he saw high up in the heavens the snow-capped peak of Fujiyama, looking like a fairy castle floating on a bank of clouds, and exclaimed, with as much enthusiasm as the Japanese themselves: “Oh! I've seen it! I've seen it!”