We continued to see many white-clad pilgrims and everywhere touring students, as often afoot as on bicycles.  I noted from the registers at many village offices that the number of young men who married before performing their military service seemed to be decreasing.  In one community, where there were two priests, one Tendai and the other Shingon, neither seemed to count for much.  One was very poor, and cultivated a small patch near his temple; the other had a little more than a cho.  The custom was for the farmers to present to their temple from 5 to 10 sho of rice from the harvest.

In connection with the question of improved implements I noticed that a reasonably efficient winnowing machine in use by a comfortably-off tenant was forty-nine years old—­that is, that it dated back to the time of the Shogun.  The secondary industry of this farmer was dwarf-plant growing.  He had also a loom for cotton-cloth making.  There were in his house, in addition to a Buddhist shrine, two Shinto shrines.  After leaving this man I visited an ex-teacher who had lost his post at fifty, no doubt through being unable to keep step with modern educational requirements.  He had on his wall the lithograph of Pestalozzi and the children which I saw in many school-houses.

On taking the road again I was told that the local landlords had held a meeting in view of the losses of tenants through wind.  Most had agreed to forgo rents and to help with artificial manure for next year.  I found taro being grown in paddies or under irrigation.  Not only the tubers of the taro but its finer stalks are eaten.  I saw gourds cut into long lengths narrower than apple rings and put out to dry.  I also noticed orange trees a century old which were still producing fruit.  Boys were driving iron hoops—­the native hoop was of bamboo—­and one of the hoop drivers wore a piece of red cloth stitched on his shoulder, which indicated that he was head of his class.  One missed a dog bounding and barking after the hoop drivers.  Sometimes at the doors of houses I noticed dogs of the lap-dog type which one sees in paintings or of the wolf type to which the native outdoor dog belongs.  The cats were as ugly as the dogs and no plumper or happier looking.  When I patted a dog or stroked a cat the act attracted attention.

We saw a good deal of hinoki (ground cypress), the wood of which is still used at Shinto festivals for making fire by friction.

We were able to visit an Eta village or rather oaza.  Whether the Eta are largely the descendants of captives of an early era or of a low class of people who on the introduction of Buddhism in the seventh or eighth century were ostracised because of their association with animal eating, animal slaughter, working in leather and grave digging is in dispute.  No doubt they have absorbed a certain number of fugitives from higher grades of the population, broken samurai, ne’er-do-weels