As we went on our way and spoke of the bad roads it was suggested that
in the old days roads were purposely left uphill and downhill in order
that the advance of enemies might be hindered. We came to a
dilapidated tea-house kept by an ugly old woman who showed a touching
fondness for a cat and a dog. From her shack we had a view of a
volcano which had destroyed two villages a few years before. Our
hostess, who made much of us, said that the catastrophe had been
preceded by "horrible da-da-da-bang" sounds and lightnings, and that
it was accompanied by "thunderbolts and heavy thick smoke." The old
woman had beheld "soil boiling and cracking."

Along our route we had more evidences of "fire farming." The procedure
was to sow buckwheat the first year and rape and millet the second
year. In the cryptomeria forests there was a variety which, when cut,
sprouts from the ground and makes a new growth like an elm. One crop
we saw was ginseng, protected by low structures covered by matting.

At length we heard the distant sound of a locomotive whistle. We were
approaching the newly opened railway which was to take us the short
run to the sea. Soon we were in a rather unkempt village which had
hardly recovered from its surprise at finding that it had a railway
station. We paid our _kurumaya_ the sum contracted for and something
over for their faithful service and for their long return run, and
having exchanged bows and cordial greetings, we left for a time the
glorified perambulators which a foreign missionary is supposed to have
introduced half a century ago. (The Japanese claim the honour of
"inventing" the jinrikisha.)

FOOTNOTES: