each of them, "I wish you to buy a book and, after reading it, to give
it to the library." "And," he told me, "none of them objected." Soon a
valuable library came into existence.

This admirable functionary felt some satisfaction at having been able
to abate the custom according to which the young men, with the tacit
permission of their parents, had gone into the neighbouring town after
harvest "to visit the immoral women." "They used to spend as much as 5
yen," said our headman. He had started worthier forms of after-harvest
relaxation, and "the cost of the amusement days is now only 50 or 60
sen."

When we got on the main line again and pursued our way farther north,
it was through even stouter snow shelters and through many tunnels.
Not a few miserable dwellings were to be seen as we passed into Akita
prefecture. We broke our journey after some hours' travelling to stay
the night at a rather primitive hot spring inn four or five miles up
in the hills. A slight rain was falling. Four passengers at a time
made the ascent to the hotel, squatting on a mat in an old
contractor's wagon, pushed along roughly laid rails by two perspiring
youths in rain-cloaks of bark strips. At the inn, on going to the
bath, I found therein a miscellaneous collection of people of both
sexes from grandparents to grandchildren. One bather enlivened us by
performances on the flute, which, if a musical instrument must be
played in a bath, seems as suitable as any. In this rambling inn there
were many farmers who, by preparing their own food and doing for
themselves generally, were holiday-making at bedrock prices.

As it was the _Bon_ season, when the spirits of the dead are supposed
to return, I was a witness of the method adopted to help the ghosts to