school-houses
full of children reciting aloud. Their wooden clogs and paper umbrellas
are stowed away in racks, provided for the purpose, at the door. The
cheerfulness with which they shout out their exercises proves plainly
enough that they are only keeping "make-believe" school. Female vegetable
and fruit venders, neat and comely as Normandy dairy-maids, are walking
about chatting and smiling and bowing, "playing at selling vegetables."
While I pause a moment to inspect the stock of a curio-dealer, the
proprietor, seated over a brazier of coals, smoking, bows politely and
points, with a chuckle of amusement, at the fierce-looking effigy of a
daimio in armor. There is not the slightest hint of a mercenary thought
about his actions; plainly enough, he hasn't the remotest wish to sell me
anything--he merely wants to call my attention to the grotesqueness of
this particular figure. He is only playing curio-dealer; he doesn't try
to sell anything, but would do so out of the abundance of his good-nature
if requested to, no doubt. A pair of little old-fashioned fire-engines
repose carelessly against the side of a municipal building. They have
grown tired of playing at extinguishing fires and have thrown aside their
toys. I wander to the water-front and try to locate my hotel from that
point of observation. Watermen are lounging about in wistaria waterproof
coats. They want me to ride to my destination in one of their boats, very
evidently, from their manner, only for the fun of the thing. Everybody is
smiling and urbane, nobody looks serious; no careworn faces are seen, no
pinched poverty. Wonderful people! they come nearer solving the problem
of living happily than any other nation. Even the professional mendicants
seem to be amused at their own poverty, as if life to them was a mere
humorous experiment, scarcely deserving of a serious thought.

The weather clears up at noon, and in the face of a strong northern
breeze I bid farewell to Shimonoseki.

The road follows for some miles along the shore, a smooth, level road
that winds about the bases of the hills that here slope down to toy and
dally with the restless surf of the famous Inland Sea. Following the
shore in a general sense, the road now and then leads inland for a mile
or two, for the purpose of linking together the numerous towns and
villages that dot the little alluvial valleys between the hills. Passing
through one large village, my attention is attracted by th