pillagers in several paddies.

On leaving Miyagi we were once more in Fukushima, with notes on which
this account of a trip to the north of Japan and back again began.
This time, instead of journeying by routes through the centre of the
prefecture, as in coming north, or as in the visit paid to Fukushima
in the Tokyo-to-Niigata journey, I travelled along the sea coast. When
we had passed through Fukushima we were in Ibaraki, a characteristic
feature of which is swamps. Drainage operations have been going on
since the time of the Shogunate. There is in this prefecture the
biggest production of beans in Japan, and we have come far enough
south to see tea frequently. In the lower half of the prefecture we
are in the great Kwanto plain, the prefectures in which are most
conveniently surveyed from Tokyo.

FOOTNOTES:

[160] Some Yamagata notes and those relating to Akita are conveniently
included in this Chapter, but these two prefectures are on the west
coast.

[161] A _rin_ is the tenth part of a sen, which in its turn is a
farthing.

[162] A kind of barley sugar.

[163] Bean soup.

[164] A street in Akita in which many prostitutes live.

[165] Closet.

[166] Bean paste.

[167] The warm black current from the south flows up the east and west
coasts. Some distance north of Tokyo, the east-coast current meets the
cold Oyashiro current from Kamchatka, and is turned off towards
America.

[168] See _A Free Farmer in a Free State_, pp. 173-4, for an account
of the custom in Zeeland by which peasants preserved themselves from
the calamity of childless marriage.

CHAPTER XXIII

A MIDNIGHT TALK

True religion is a relation, accordant with reason and knowledge, which
man establishes with the infinite life surrounding him, and it is such as
binds his life to that infinity, and guides his conduct.--TOLSTOY

One of the most instructive experiences I had during my rural journeys
occurred one night when I was staying at a country inn. At a late hour
I was told that the Governor of the prefecture was in a room overhead.
I had called on him a few days before in his prefectural capital. He
was a large daimyo-like figure, dignified and courteous, but seemingly
impenetrable. There was no depth in our talk. His aloof and
uncommunicative manner was deterring, but by this time I had learnt
the elementary lesson of unending patience and freedom from hasty
judgment that is the first step to an advance in knowledge of a