Sir, I am talking of the mass of the people.--JOHNSON


The railway made its way through snow stockades and through many
tunnels which pierced cryptomeria-clad hills. Eventually we descended
to the wonderful Kambara plains, a sea of emerald rice. Fourteen
million bushels of rice are produced on the flats of Niigata
prefecture, which grows more rice than any other. The rice, grown
under 800 different names, is officially graded into half a dozen
qualities. The problem of the high country we had come from was how to
keep its paddy fields from drying up; the problem of Niigata is
chiefly to keep the water in its fields at a sufficiently low level.
Almost every available square yard of the prefecture is paddy.

At Gosen there were depressing-looking weaving sheds, but the Black
Country created by the oil fields farther on was in even more striking
contrast with the beautiful region we had left. The petroleum yield
was 65 million gallons, and the smell of the oil went with us to the
capital city.

Niigata has a dark reputation for exporting farmers' daughters to
other parts of Japan, but I have also heard that the percentage of
attendance made by the children at the primary schools of the
prefecture is higher than anywhere else. Like Amsterdam, Niigata is a
city of bridges. There must be 200 of them. The big timber bridge
across the estuary is nearly half a mile long. One finds in Niigata a
Manchester-like spirit of business enterprise. Our hotel was
excellent.

Because they speak with all sorts of people and hear a great deal of