One of the impromptu speakers, a white-haired, toil-marked farmer, told how forty years before he had gone to the next prefecture and opened new land.  “With his spectacles and moustache,” explained the chairman—­if the man who takes the initiative from time to time at a Japanese meeting may be properly called a chairman—­“he looks like a gentleman; but he works hard.”  And the man showed his hands as a testimony to the severity of his labours.

“It was in the winter,” he said, “that I went away from my home and obtained a certain tract of waste.  I had no acquaintance near.  I brought some food, but when I fell short I had no more.  I had gone with my third boy.  We lived in a small hut and were in a miserable condition.  Then a fierce wind took off the roof.  It was at four in the morning when the roof blew off.  In February I began to open a rice field.  Gradually we got a cho.  At length I opened another cho, but there was much gravel.  Some of my newly opened fields are very high up the hill.  If you chance to pass my house please come to see me.  The maple leaves are very beautiful and you can enjoy the sight of many birds.”

The early meetings of the expert farmers used to last not one day but two, for the men delighted in narrating their experiences to one another.  Some of the audience used to weep as the older men told their tales.  The farmers would sit up late round a farmer or a professor who was talking about some subject that interested them.  The originator of these gatherings, Mr. Yamasaki, told me that he was “more than once moved to tears by the merits and pure hearts of the farmer speakers.”

Of the regard and respect which the farmers had for this man I had many indications.  Like not a few agricultural authorities, he is a samurai.[25] He is exceptionally tall for a Japanese, looks indeed rather like a Highland gillie, and when one evening I prevailed on him to put on armour, thrust two swords in his obi and take a long bow in his hand, he was an imposing figure.  He carries the ideals of bushido into his rural work.  He does not sleep more than five hours, and he is up every morning at five.

But I am getting away from the meeting.  There was a priest who spoke, a man curiously like Tolstoy. (He had, no doubt, Ainu blood in him.) He wore the stiff buttoned-up jacket of the primary school teacher and spoke modestly.  “Formerly the rice fields of my village suffered very much from bad irrigation,” he said, “but when that was put right the soil became excellent.  In the days when the soil was bad the people were good and no man suspected another of stealing his seal.[26] But when the soil became good the disposition of the people was influenced in a bad way, and they brought their seals to the temple to be kept safe.

“At that time the organiser of this meeting came and made a speech in my village.  On hearing his speech I thought it an easy task to make my village good.  At once I began to do good things.  I formed several men’s and women’s associations, all at once, as if I were Buddha.  But the real condition of the people was not much improved.  There came many troubles upon me, and our friend wrote a letter.  I was very thankful, and I have been keeping that letter in the temple and bowing there morning and evening.