The landlord told me that the sea dikes took two years to build and that most of the earth was carried by women, 5,000 of them.  Their labour was cheap and the small quantities of earth which each woman brought at a time permitted of a better consolidation of an embankment that was 240 feet wide at the base.  More than a million yen were laid out on the work.  The reclaimed land was free of State taxes for half a century, but the landlord made a voluntary gift to the village of 2,000 yen a year.  The yearly rent coming in was already nearly 56,000 yen.  The cost of the management of the drained land and of repairs to the embankment, 20,000 yen a year, was just met by the profits of a fishpond.  A valuable edible seaweed industry was carried on outside the sea dikes.  The landlord mentioned that he had had great difficulty in overcoming the objections of his grandfather to the investment, but that eventually the old man got so much interested that at ninety-three he used to march about giving orders.

One day in the course of my journeying I was near a railway station where country people had assembled to watch the passing of a train by which the Emperor was travelling.  No one was permitted along the line except at specified points which were carefully watched.  A young constable who wore a Russian war medal was opposite the spot where I stood.  He politely asked me to keep one shaku (foot) or so away from the paling.  When someone’s child pushed itself half-way through the paling the police instruction was, “Please keep back the little one for, if it should pass through, other children will no doubt wish to follow.”  A later request by the constable was to take off our hats and keep silence when he raised his hand on the approach of the Imperial train.  We were further asked not to point at the Emperor and on no account to cry Banzai. (The Japanese shout Banzai for the Emperor in his absence and cry Banzai to victorious generals and admirals, but perfect silence is considered the most respectful way of greeting the Emperor himself.) The Imperial train, which was preceded by a pilot engine drawing a van full of rather anxious-looking police, slowed down on approaching the station so that everyone had a chance of seeing the Emperor, who was facing us.  All the school children of the district had been marshalled where they could get a good view.  The Japanese bow of greatest respect—­it has been introduced since the Restoration, I was told—­is an inclination of the head so slight that it does not prevent the person who bows seeing his superior.  This bow when made by rows of people is impressive.  Undoubtedly the crowd was moved by the sight of its sovereign.  Not a few people held their hands together in front of them in an attitude of devotion.  The day before I had happened to see first a priest and then a professor examining a magazine which had a portrait of the Emperor as frontispiece.  Both bowed slightly to the print.  Coloured portraits of the Emperor and Empress are on sale in the shops, but in many cases there is a little square of tissue paper over the Imperial countenances.