A narrative of travels in back-country Japan in 1878 by the most intrepid and unassuming of Victorian lady explorers, Isabella Bird. Japan had just re-opened its doors to the west, and Bird (after sojourns in the Rocky Mountains and Hawaii, journeys which both produced enjoyable travelogues of their own) could not resist the allure of the unknown island-nation. She wasted little time on the cities, however, and headed straight out to meet the peasants in their fields. This predilection for the common folk seems only fitting in the country parson's daughter, who was so sickly in her youth that she never expected to leave Yorkshire, much less the British Isles.  (JPN94, $12.95)