The rice fields in the hills
were suffering from lack of water and a deputation of villagers had
gone ten miles into the mountains to pray for rain. It is wonderful at
what altitudes rice fields are contrived. I noted some at 2,500 ft. In
looking down from a place where the cliff road hung out over the river
that flowed a hundred feet below I noticed a stone image lying on its
back in the water. It may have come there by accident, but the ducking
of such a figure in order to procure rain is not unknown.

At an inn I asked one of the greybeards who courteously visited us if
there would be much competition for his seat when he retired from the
village assembly. He thought that there would be several candidates.
In the town from which we had set out on our journey through the
highlands a doctor had spent 500 yen in trying to get on the assembly.

The tea at this resting place was poor and someone quoted the proverb,
"Even the devil was once eighteen and bad tea has its tolerable first
cup." On going to the village office I found that for a population of
2,000 there were, in addition to the village shrine, sixteen other
shrines and three Buddhist temples. Against fire there were four fire
pumps and 155 "fire defenders." A dozen of the young men of the
village were serving in the army, four were home on furlough, six were
invalided and forty were of the reserve. As many as thirty-seven had
medals. The doctors were two in number and the midwives three. There
was a sanitary committee of twenty-three members. The revenue of the
village was 5,740 yen. It had a fund of 740 yen "against time of
famine." The taxes paid were 2,330 yen for State tax, 2,460 yen for
prefectural tax and 4,350 yen for village tax. The village possessed
two co-operative societies, a young men's association, a Buddhist
young men's association, a Buddhist young women's association, a
society for the development of knowledge, a society of the graduates
of the primary school, two thrift organisations, a society for
"promoting knowledge and virtue," and an association the members of
which "aimed at becoming distinguished." There were in the village
ninety subscribers to the Red Cross and two dozen members of the
national Patriotic Women's Association.

In the county through which we were moving there was gold, silver and
copper mining.[124] Out of its population of 36,000 only 632 were
entitled to vote for an M.P.

We rested at a school where the motto was