Three-fourths of this expense was borne by the village. The regularity
and strictness of the dormitory management were found to have an
excellent effect. At the winter school, an adjunct of the day school,
there was an attendance of a score of youths and sixty girls.

Speaking of a place where we stayed for the night, one who had a wide
knowledge of rural Japan said that he did not think that there was a
lonelier spot where farming was carried on. There was no market or
fair for 80 or 90 miles and the little groups of houses were 2 or 3
miles apart. In this district, it was explained, "the rich are not so
rich and the poor are not so poor."

We passed somewhere a fine shrine for the welfare of horses. At a
certain festival hundreds of horses are driven down there to gallop
round and round the sacred buildings. Thousands of people attend this
festival, but it was declared that no one was ever hurt by the horses.

The poetical names of country inns would make an interesting
collection. I remember that it was at "the inn of cold spring water"
that the waiting-maid had never seen cow's milk. She proved to be the
daughter of the host and wore a gold ring by way of marking the fact.
This girl told us that on the banks of the river there was only one
house in 70 miles. The village was having the usual holiday to
celebrate the end of the toilsome sericultural season.

On our way to the next village we met two far-travelled young women
selling the dried seaweed which, in many varieties, figures in the
Japanese dietary.[128] (There are shops which sell nothing but
prepared seaweeds.) A notice board there informed us that the road was
maintained at the cost of the local young men's society. As we were on