should make, after four or five
years, 70 to 100 yen clear profit in a year.

I rather suspect that the men I talked with had made some of their
money by advancing funds to their neighbours on mortgage. They all
seemed to own several farms. When I asked how religion prospered in
Hokkaido they said with a smile, "There are many things to do here, so
there is no spare time for religion as in our native places." There is
a larger proportion of Christians in Hokkaido than on the mainland.
One village of a thousand inhabitants contained two churches and a
Salvation Army barracks. It was reputed, also, to have eight or ten
"waitresses" and five sake shops. It is said that a good deal of
_shochu_, which is stronger than sake, is drunk.

The roughest _basha_ ride I made was to a place seven miles from
railhead in the extreme north-east. Such roads as we adventured by are
little more than tracks with ditches on either side. The journey back,
because there were no horses to ride, we made in a narrow but
extraordinarily heavy farm wagon with wheels a foot wide and drawn by
a stallion. Shortly after starting there was a terrific thunderstorm
which soaked us and hastened uncomfortably the pace of the animal in
the shafts. When the worst of the downpour was over, and we had faced
the prospect of slithering about the wagon for the rest of the
journey, for the stallion had decided to hurry, a farmer's wife asked
us for a lift and clambered in with agility. My companion and I were
then sitting in a soggy state with our backs against the wagon front
and our legs outstretched resignedly. The cheery farmer's wife, who
was wet too, plopped down between us and, as the bumps came, gripped
one of my legs with much good fellowship. She was a godsend by reason
of her plumpness, for we were now wedged so tight that we no longer
rocked and pitched about the wagon at each jolt. And no doubt we dried
more quickly. Providence had indeed been good to us, for shortly
afterwards we passed, lying on its side in a _spruit_, the _basha_
that had carried us on our outward journey.

We were three hours in all in the wagon. Our passenger told us that
her husband had several farms and that they were very comfortably off
and very glad that they had come to Hokkaido. When the farmer's wife
had to alight a mile from our destination we chose to walk. Bad roads
are a serious problem for the Hokkaido farmer. In one district, only
fifteen miles from the capital,