The Japanese Government, in its efforts to improve the institutions of the country, has introduced systems of reform from various countries.  Commissions were sent to the different Western countries to examine and report upon the methods of education, police, army, navy, postal matters, judiciary, etc.  What was believed to be the best of the various systems was then selected as the model of Japan’s new departure and adoption of Western civilization.  Thus the police service is modelled from the French, the judiciary from the English, the schools after the American methods, etc.  Having inaugurated these improvements, the Japs seem determined to follow their models with the same minute scrupulosity they exhibit in copying material things.  There is probably as little use for elaborate police regulations in Japan as in any country under the sun; but having chosen the splendid police service of France to pattern by, they can now boast of having a service that lacks nothing in effectiveness.

A very good road, with an avenue of fine spreading conifers of some kind, leads out of Omura.  To the left is the bay of Omura, closely skirted at times by the road.  At one place is observed an inland temple, connected with the mainland by a causeway of rough rock.  The little island is covered with dark pines and jagged rocks, amid which the Japs have perched their shrine and erected a temple.  Both the Chinese and Japs seem fond of selecting the most romantic spots for their worship and the erection of religious edifices.

The day is warm, and a heavy shower during the night has made the road heavy in places, although much of it is clean gravel that is not injured by the rain.  Over hill and down dale the ku-ruma road leads to Ureshino, a place celebrated for its mineral springs and bath.  On the way one passes through charming little ravines, where tiny cataracts come tumbling down the sides of moss-grown precipices, a country of pretty thatched cottages, temples, groves, and purling rivulets.

On the streams are numerous rice-hulling machines, operated by the ingenious manipulation of the water.  In a little hut is a mortar containing the rice.  Attached to a pivot is a long beam having a pestle at one end and a trough at the other.  The pestle is made to fall upon the rice in the mortar by the filling and automatic emptying of the trough outside.  The trough, filling with water, drops down and empties of its own weight; this causes the opposite end to fall suddenly.  This operation repeats itself about every two seconds through the day.

The gravelly hills about Ureshino are devoted to the cultivation of tea; the green tea-gardens, with the undulating, even rows of thick shrubs, looking very beautiful where they slope to the foot of the bare rocky cliffs.  Ureshino and the baths are some little distance off the main road to Shimonoseki; so, not caring particularly to go there, I continue on to the village of Takio, where rainy weather compels