The following morning is frosty, and low, scudding clouds denote unsettled weather, as I resume my journey.  Much of the time my road practically follows the shore, and sometimes simply follows the windings and curvatures of the gravelly beach.  Most of the low land near the shore appears to be reclaimed from the sea—­low, flat-looking mud-fields, protected from overflow by miles and miles of stout dikes and rock-ribbed walls.  Fishing villages abound along the shore, and for long distances a recent typhoon has driven the sea inland and washed away the road.  Thousands of men and women are engaged in repairing the damages with the abundance of material ready to hand on the sloping granite-shale hills around the foot of which the roadway winds.

Fish are cheaper and more plentiful here than anything else, and the old dame at the yadoya of a fishing village cooks me a big skate for supper, which makes first-rate eating, in spite of the black, malodorous sauce she uses so liberally in the cooking.

In this room is a wonderful brass-bound cabinet, suggestive of soul-satisfying household idols and comfortable private worship.  During the evening I venture to open and take a peep in this cabinet to satisfy a pardonable curiosity as to its contents.  My trespass reveals a little wax idol seated amid a wealth of cheap tinsel ornaments, and bits of inscribed paper.  Before him sets an offering of rice, sake, and dried fish in tiny porcelain bowls.

Clear and frosty opens the following morning; the road is good, the country gradually improves, and by nine o’clock I am engaged in looking at the military exercises of troops quartered in the populous city of Hiroshima.  The exercises are conducted within a large square, enclosed with a low bank of earth and a ditch.  Crowds of curious civilians are watching the efforts of raw cavalry recruits to ride stout little horses, that buck, kick, bite, and paw the air.  Every time a soldier gets thrown the on-lookers chuckle with delight.  Both men and horses are undersized, but look stocky and serviceable withal.  The uniform of the cavalry is blue, with yellow trimmings.  The artillery looks trim and efficient, and the horses, although rather small, are powerful and wiry, just the horses one would select for the rough work of a campaign.

North of Hiroshima the country assumes a hilly character, the road following up one mountain-stream and down another.  In this mountainous region one meets mail-carriers, the counterpart almost of the fleet-footed postmen of Bengal.  The Japanese postman improves upon nature by the addition of a waist-cloth and a scant shirt of white and blue cotton check; his letter-pouch is fastened to a bamboo-staff; as he bounds along with springy stride he warns people to clear the way by shouting in a musical voice, “Honk, honk.”  This cry resembles in a very striking degree the utterances of an old veteran brant, or wild-goose, when speeding northward in the spring to escape a warm wave from the south.