the woman
works side by side with the man, standing all day up to her knees in
mud, her dress tucked up and her lower limbs encased in tight-fitting,
blue cotton trousers, planting, transplanting, weeding, and turning over
the evil-smelling mire, only to be distinguished from her husband by her
broader belt tied in a bow behind. In mountain regions we meet the women
climbing the steep mountain roads, pruning-hook in hand, after wood for
winter fires; or descending, towards night, carrying a load that a
donkey need not be ashamed of, packed on a frame attached to the
shoulders, or poised lightly upon a straw mat upon the head. There is
one village near Ky[=o]to, Yase by name, at the base of Hiyei Zan, the
historic Buddhist stronghold, where the women attain a stature and
muscular development quite unique among the pigmy population of the
island empire. Strong, jolly, red-cheeked women they are, showing no
evidence of the shrinking away with the advance of old age that is
characteristic of most of their countrywomen. With their tucked-up
_kimonos_ and blue cotton trousers, they stride up and down the
mountain, carrying the heaviest and most unwieldy of burdens as lightly
and easily as the ordinary woman carries her baby. My first acquaintance
with them was during a camping expedition upon the sacred mountain. I
myself was carried up the ascent by two small, nearly naked, finely
tattooed and moxa-scarred men; but my baggage, consisting of two closely
packed hampers as large as ordinary steamer trunks, was lifted lightly
to the heads of these feminine porters, and, poised on little straw
pads, carried easily up the narrow trail, made doubly difficult by
low-hanging branches, to the camp, a distance of three or four miles.
From among these women of Yase, on account of their remarkable physical
development, have been chosen frequently the nurses for the imperial
infants; an honor which the Yase villagers duly appreciate, and which
makes them bear themselves proudly among their less favored neighbors.

In other parts of the country, in the neighborhood of Nikk[=o], for
instance, the care of the horses, mild little pack-mares that do much of
the burden-bearing in those mountains, is mainly in the hands of the
women. At Nikk[=o], when we would hire ponies for a two days' expedition
to Yumoto, a little, elderly woman was the person with whom our bargains
were made; and a close bargainer she proved to be, taking every
advantage th