squatting foxes at either side. A well-known professor lately arrived
at the conviction that the god worshipped at such shrines is the god
of agriculture. He went so far as to recommend the faculty of
agriculture at Tokyo university to have a shrine erected within its
walls to this divinity, but the suggestion was not adopted.

In the course of another chat with the old host of the inn he referred
to the time, close on half a century ago, when 3,000 hungry peasants
marched through the district demanding rice. They did no harm. "They
were satisfied when they were given food; the peasants at that time
were heavily oppressed." To-day the people round about look as if they
were oppressed by the ghosts of old-time tyrants. But there is
"something that doth linger" of self-respect. When we left on our way
to Tokyo I gave the man who brought our bags a mile in a barrow to the
station 40 sen. He returned 10 sen, saying that 30 sen was enough.

FOOTNOTES:

[133] Although, as has been seen, the rural problems under
investigation in this book are inextricably bound up with religion,
limits of space make it necessary to reserve for another volume the
consideration of the large and complex question of missionary work.

[134] As to the "bubbly-nosed callant," to quote the description given
of young Smollett, nasal unpleasantness seems to be popularly regarded
as a sign of health. The constant sight of it is one of the minor
discomforts of travel.

IN AND OUT OF THE SILK PREFECTURE[135]

CHAPTER XVI

PROBLEMS BEHIND THE PICTURESQUE

(SAITAMA, GUMMA, NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)

A foreigner who comes among us without prejudice may speak his
mind freely.--GOLDSMITH

I went back to Nagano to visit the silk industrial regions. My route
lay through the prefectures of Saitama and Gumma. I left Tokyo on the
last day of June. Many farmers were threshing their barley. On the
dry-land patches, where the grain crop had been harvested, soya bean,
sown between the rows of grain long before harvest, was becoming
bushier now that it was no longer overshadowed. Maize in most places
was about a foot high, but where it had been sown early was already
twice that height. The sweet potato had been planted out from its
nursery bed for weeks. Here and there were small crops of tea which
had been severely picked for its second crop. I noticed melons,
cucumbers and squashes, and patches of the serviceable burdock. Many
paddy farmers had water