We looked at a big dam which an enterprising landowner was constructing.  Three hundred women were consolidating the earthwork by means of round, flat blocks of granite about twice the size of a curling stone.  Round each block was a groove in which was a leather belt with a number of rings threaded on it.  To each ring a rope was attached.  When these ropes were extended the granite block became the hub of a wheel of which the ropes were the spokes.  A number of women and girls took ropes apiece and jerked them simultaneously, whereupon the granite block rose in the air to the level of the rope pullers’ heads.  It was then allowed to fall with a thud.  After each thud the pullers moved along a foot so that the block should drop on a fresh spot.  The gangs hauling at the rammers worked to the tune of a plaintive ditty which went slowly so as to give them plenty of breathing time.  It was something like this: 

        Weep not,
        Do not lament,
        This world is as the wheel of a car. 
        If we live long,
        We may meet again on the road.

None of the sturdy earth thumpers seemed to be overworked in the bracing air of the dam top, and they certainly looked picturesque with their white and blue towels round their heads.  Indeed, with all the singing and movement, not to speak of the refreshment stalls, the scene was not unlike a fair.  When we got back to the road again we passed through a well-watered rice district which was equal to the production of heavy crops.  Only three years before it had been covered by a thick forest in which it was not uncommon for robbers to lurk.  The transformation had been brought about by the construction of a dam in the hills somewhat similar to the one we had just visited.

I could not but notice in this district the considerable areas given up to grave-plots.  No crematoria seemed to be in use.  There had been a newspaper proposal that in areas where the population was very large in proportion to the land available for cultivation the dead should be taken out to sea.  Where land is scarce one sees various expedients practised so that every square foot shall be cropped.  I repeatedly found stacks of straw or sticks standing not on the land but on a rough bridge thrown for the purpose over a drainage ditch.  In this district land had been recovered from the sea.

FOOTNOTES: 

[178] For an account of a vegetable wax factory, see Appendix XLVIII.

[179] For further particulars of Eta in Japan and America, see Appendix XLIX.

[180] See Appendix L.

[181] In 1918 net profits of 33 million yen were made by cotton factories.  The factories are anticipating sharp competition from China.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE STORY OF THE BLIND HEADMAN

(EHIME)

The thing to do is to rise humorously above one’s body which is the veritable rebel, not one’s mind.—­MEREDITH