ied the last touch
of firmness in her character which would enable her to play with the
whole round world. We possess that--We, the nation of the glass
flower-shade, the pink worsted mat, the red and green china puppy-dog,
and the poisonous Brussels carpet. It is our compensation....

"Temples!" said a man from Calcutta, some hours later as I raved about
what I had seen. "Temples! I'm sick of temples. If I've seen one, I've
seen fifty thousand of 'em--all exactly alike. But I tell you what is
exciting. Go down the rapids at Arashima,--eight miles from here. It's
better fun than any temple with a fat-faced Buddha in the middle."

But I took my friend's advice. Have I managed to convey the impression
that April is fine in Japan? Then I apologise. It is generally rainy,
and the rain is cold; but the sunshine when it comes is worth it all. We
shouted with joy of living when our fiery, untamed 'rickshaws bounded
from stone to stone of the vilely paved streets of the suburbs and
brought us into what ought to have been vegetable gardens but were
called fields. The face of the flat lands was cut up in every direction
by bunds, and all the roads seem to run on the top of them.

"Never," said the Professor, driving his stick into the black soil,
"never have I imagined irrigation so perfectly controlled as this is.
Look at the _rajbahars_ faced with stone and fitted with sluices; look
at the water-wheels and,--phew! but they manure their fields too well."

The first circle of fields round any town is always pretty rank, but
this superfluity of scent continued throughout the country. Saving a few
parts near Dacca and Patna, the face of the land was more thickly
populated than Bengal and was worked five times better. There was no
single patch untilled, and no cultivation that was not up to the full
limit of the soil's productiveness. Onions, barley, in little ridges
between the ridges of tea, beans, rice, and a half a dozen other things
that we did not know the names of, crowded the eye already wearied with
the glare of the golden mustard. Manure is a good thing, but manual
labour is better. We saw both even to excess. When a Japanese ryot has
done everything to his field that he can possibly think of, he weeds the
barley stalk by stalk with his finger and thumb. This is true. I saw a
man doing it.

We headed through the marvellous country straight across the plain on
which Kioto stands, till we reached the range of hills on the