ulty in finding my way
along zigzag field-paths to my proper road for the north. The rain has
fallen at intervals throughout the day, but the roads have averaged good.
Fifty miles, or thereabout, must have been reeled off when, at early
eventide, I pull up at a village ya-doya. Before settling myself down,
for rest and supper, I take a stroll through the village in quest of
possible interesting things. Not far from the yadoya my attention is
arrested by a prominent sign, in italics, "uropean eating, Kameya hous."
Entertaining happy visions of beefsteak and Bass's ale for supper, I
enter the establishment and ask the young man in charge whether the place
is an hotel. He smiles, bows, and intimates his woeful ignorance of what
I am saying.

The following morning is frosty, and low, scudding clouds denote
unsettled weather, as I resume my journey. Much of the time my road
practically follows the shore, and sometimes simply follows the windings
and curvatures of the gravelly beach. Most of the low land near the shore
appears to be reclaimed from the sea--low, flat-looking mud-fields,
protected from overflow by miles and miles of stout dikes and rock-ribbed
walls. Fishing villages abound along the shore, and for long distances a
recent typhoon has driven the sea inland and washed away the road.
Thousands of men and women are engaged in repairing the damages with the
abundance of material ready to hand on the sloping granite-shale hills
around the foot of which the roadway winds.

Fish are cheaper and more plentiful here than anything else, and the old
dame at the yadoya of a fishing village cooks me a big skate for supper,
which makes first-rate eating, in spite of the black, malodorous sauce
she uses so liberally in the cooking.

In this room is a wonderful brass-bound cabinet, suggestive of
soul-satisfying household idols and comfortable private worship. During
the evening I venture to open and take a peep in this cabinet to satisfy
a pardonable curiosity as to its contents. My trespass reveals a little
wax idol seated amid a wealth of cheap tinsel ornaments, and bits of
inscribed paper. Before him sets an offering of rice, sake, and dried
fish in tiny porcelain bowls.

Clear and frosty opens the following morning; the road is good, the
country gradually improves, and by nine o'clock I am engaged in looking
at the military exercises of troops quartered in the populous city of
Hiroshima. The exercises are conducted with