oking
boards with pent roofs. But all of these notices are not official; one
I copied was the advertisement of a shrine which declared itself to be
unrivalled for toothache. The horses on the roads are sometimes
protected from the sun by a kind of oblong sail, which works on a
swivel attached to the harness. Black velvety butterflies as big as
wrens flit about. (There are twice as many butterflies and moths in
Japan as at home.) Snakes, ordinarily of harmless varieties, are
frequently seen, dead or alive.

Many of the people one passes are smoking, usually the little brass
pipe used both by men and women, which, like some of the earliest
English pipes, does not hold more tobacco than will provide a few
draws. The pipe is usually charged twice or thrice in succession. One
notices an immense amount of cigarette smoking, which cannot be
without ill effect. There is a law forbidding smoking below the age of
twenty. It is not always enforced, but when enforced there is a
confiscation of smoking materials and a fining of the parents. The
voices of many middle-aged women and some young ones are raucous owing
to excessive smoking of pipes or cigarettes.

I looked into a school and saw the wall inscription, "Penmanship is
like pulling a cart uphill. There must be no haste and no stopping."
Here, as in so many places, I saw the well-worn cover and much-thumbed
pages of _Self Help_. I may add a fact which would be in its place in
a new edition of Smiles's _Character_. As a simple opening to
conversation I often asked if a man had been in Europe or America. His
answer, if he had not travelled, was never "No." It was always "Not
yet."

In these country schools most of the songs are set to Western tunes.
Such airs as "Ye Banks and Braes," "Auld Lang Syne," "Annie Laurie,"
"Home, Sweet Home" and "The Last Rose of Summer" are utilised for the
songs not only of school children but of university students. Few of
the singers have any notion that the music was not written in their
own land. A Japanese friend told me that all the airs I mentioned
"seem tender and touching to us," and I remember a Japanese
agricultural expert saying, "Reading those poems of Burns, I believe
firmly that our hearts can vibrate with yours."

As I have denied myself the pleasure of dwelling on Japanese scenic
beauties, I may not pause to bear witness to the faery delights of
cherry blossom which I enjoyed everywhere during this journey. But I
may record tw