ountry inns would make an interesting
collection. I remember that it was at "the inn of cold spring water"
that the waiting-maid had never seen cow's milk. She proved to be the
daughter of the host and wore a gold ring by way of marking the fact.
This girl told us that on the banks of the river there was only one
house in 70 miles. The village was having the usual holiday to
celebrate the end of the toilsome sericultural season.

On our way to the next village we met two far-travelled young women
selling the dried seaweed which, in many varieties, figures in the
Japanese dietary.[128] (There are shops which sell nothing but
prepared seaweeds.) A notice board there informed us that the road was
maintained at the cost of the local young men's society. As we were on
foot we felt grateful, for the road was well kept. We passed for miles
over planking hung on the cliff side or on roadway carried on
embankments. On the suspended pathways there was now and then a plank
loose or broken, and there was no rail between the pedestrian and the
torrent dashing below. Where there was embanked roadway it was almost
always uphill and downhill and it frequently swung sharply round the
corner of a cliff. As the river increased in volume we saw many rafts
of timber shooting the rapids. At one place twenty-six raftsmen had
been drowned. The remnants of two bridges showed the force of the
floods.

In this region the _kurumaya_ were hard put to it at times and once a
_kuruma_ broke down. Its owner cheerfully detached its broken axle and
went off with it at a trot ten miles or so to a blacksmith. Later he
traversed the ten miles once more to refit his _kuruma_, afterwards
coming on fifteen more miles to our inn. The endurance and cheeriness
of the _kurumaya_ were surprising. It was usually in face of their
protests that we got out to ease them while going uphill. Every
morning they wanted to arrange to go farther than we thought
reasonable. Each man had not only his passenger but his passenger's
heavy bag. One day we did thirty-six miles over rough roads. The
_kurumaya_ proposed to cover fifty. They showed spirit, good nature
and loyalty. The character of their conversation is worth mentioning.
At one point they were discussing the plays we had witnessed, at other
times the scenery, local legends, the best routes and the crops,
material condition and disposition of the villagers. Our _kurumaya_
compared very favourably indeed with men of an