e.

In these hills the rice was planted farther apart than is usual so
that the sun might warm the water. Here as elsewhere _daikon_ were
hung up to dry on walls and trees, and looked like giant tallow
candles. Below a bridge, which marked the village boundary, flags had
been flung down by way of keeping off epidemics. Evil spirits were
warded off by special dances.

The porch of a little tea-house where we rested was covered with
grapes. Soon after leaving it we reached our destination for the
night, a small town of houses of several storeys which clustered on a
hillside under the shadow of a Zen temple. Meat and eggs were
forbidden to the town, but as the residents were all Zen Buddhists the
restriction was no hardship. There was no cow in the place, but
condensed milk was allowed. A man at the inn told me that he knew of
ten Shinto shrines which forbade the use of chickens and eggs in their
localities. The view from the temple, perched high on its rock above
the wide riverway, was exceptionally fine. Parties of boys and girls
of thirteen paid visits to this temple "because thirteen is known as a
perilous age." The people of the vegetarian town, instead of feeding
on the fish in the river, fed them. I saw a shoal of fish being given
scraps at the water edge.

As we went on our way and spoke of the bad roads it was suggested that
in the old days roads were purposely left uphill and downhill in order
that the advance of enemies might be hindered. We came to a
dilapidated tea-house kept by an ugly old woman who showed a touching
fondness for a cat and a dog. From her shack we had a view of a
volcano which had destroyed two villages a few years before. Our
hostess, who made much of us, said that the catastrophe had been
preceded by "horrible da-da-da-bang" sounds and lightnings, and that
it was accompanied by "thunderbolts and heavy thick smoke." The old
woman had beheld "soil boiling and cracking."

Along our route we had more evidences of "fire farming." The procedure
was to sow buckwheat the first year and rape and millet the second
year. In the cryptomeria forests there was a variety which, when cut,
sprouts from the ground and makes a new growth like an elm. One crop
we saw was ginseng, protected by low structures covered by matting.

At length we heard the distant sound of a locomotive whistle. We were
approaching the newly opened railway which was to take us the short
run to the sea. Soon we were in a rather