Part 23 (1/2)

There was talk in praise of millet. Though low socially in the dietary of j.a.pan, it has merits. It withstands cold and even salt spray. It ripens earlier than rice and so may sometimes be harvested before a spell of bad weather. It yields well, it will store for some time, its taste is ”little inferior to rice and better than that of barley” and it contains more protein than rice. It is cooked after slight polis.h.i.+ng and the straw provides fodder. ”In the north-east, where millet is most eaten,” I was told, ”there are people who are 5 ft. 10 ins. to 6 ft. and there are many wrestlers.” The seeds in the handsome heavy ears of millet are about the size of the letter O in the footnote type of this book.

In the train a farmer who knew the prefecture spoke of _Bon_ songs and dances: ”The result of the action against them was not good. The meeting of young men and women at the _Bon_ gatherings was in their minds half the year in prospect and half in retrospect. Bearing in mind the condition of the people, even the worst _Bon_ songs are not objectionable. But when the people become educated some songs will be objectionable.”

Visitors to a poor prefecture like Miyagi must be surprised to see so much adjusted paddy. There is more adjusted paddy in Miyagi than in any other prefecture. Some 90,000 acres have been taken in hand and a large amount of money has been spent. The work has been carried out largely by way of giving wages to farmers during famine. A new tunnel brought water to 6,000 acres. ”The bad climate of Miyagi cannot be mended,” I was told; ”all that can be done is to seek for the earliest varieties of rice, to sow early, to work as diligently as possible and to deal with floods by embanking the rivers and by tree planting.” As many as 7,000 people go from Miyagi to Hokkaido in a year. It seems to point to a certain amount of f.e.c.klessness that 15 per cent. of them return.

One man I spoke with during my journey south gave a vivid impression of the influence of young men's a.s.sociations. ”Before they started,”

said he, ”the young men spent their time in singing indecent songs, in gambling, in talking foolishly, and twice or thrice a year in immorality. A young widow has sometimes been at fault; the parents-in-law need her help and village sentiment is against her remarriage. The suppression of _Bon_ dances has done more harm than good by keeping out of sight what used to be said and done openly[168]. Two or three priests are active in this prefecture. Where the s.h.i.+nshu sect is strong you will find little divorce. But the influence of Buddhism has been stationary in recent years. There is some action by missionaries of the j.a.panese Christian church, but the number of Christians among real rustics is very small.”

At Sendai it was pleasant to see a prefectural office--or most of it--housed in a j.a.panese building instead of a dreadful edifice ”in Western style.” In feudal times the building was a school. Portraits of daimyos and famous scholars of the Sendai clan surround the Governor's room, and adjoining it is the _tatami_-covered apartment in which the daimyo used to sit when he was present at the examinations.

Among the portraits is one of a retainer which was painted in Rome, where he had been sent on a mission of inquiry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SCARECROW.--A SKETCH BY PROFESSOR NASU.]

In his scarecrow-making the j.a.panese farmer seems to have great faith in the Western-style cap, felt hat, or even umbrella, if he can get hold of one. Ordinarily, the bogey man has a bow with the arrow strung. Occasionally a farmer seeks to scare birds by means of clappers which he places in the hands of a child or an old man who sits in a rough shelter raised high enough to overtop the rice. Now and then there is a clapper connected with a string to the farm-house.

I have also seen a row of bamboos carried across a paddy field with a square piece of wood hanging loosely against each one. A rope connecting all the bamboos with one another was carried to the roadway, and now and then a pa.s.ser-by of a benevolent disposition, or with nothing better to do, or, it may be, standing in some degree of relations.h.i.+p to the paddy-field proprietor, gave the rope a tug. Then all the bamboos bent, and as they smartly straightened themselves caused the clappers to give forth a sound sufficiently agitating to sparrow pillagers in several paddies.

On leaving Miyagi we were once more in f.u.kus.h.i.+ma, with notes on which this account of a trip to the north of j.a.pan and back again began.

This time, instead of journeying by routes through the centre of the prefecture, as in coming north, or as in the visit paid to f.u.kus.h.i.+ma in the Tokyo-to-Niigata journey, I travelled along the sea coast. When we had pa.s.sed through f.u.kus.h.i.+ma we were in Ibaraki, a characteristic feature of which is swamps. Drainage operations have been going on since the time of the Shogunate. There is in this prefecture the biggest production of beans in j.a.pan, and we have come far enough south to see tea frequently. In the lower half of the prefecture we are in the great Kwanto plain, the prefectures in which are most conveniently surveyed from Tokyo.

FOOTNOTES:

[160] Some Yamagata notes and those relating to Akita are conveniently included in this Chapter, but these two prefectures are on the west coast.

[161] A _rin_ is the tenth part of a sen, which in its turn is a farthing.

[162] A kind of barley sugar.

[163] Bean soup.

[164] A street in Akita in which many prost.i.tutes live.

[165] Closet.

[166] Bean paste.

[167] The warm black current from the south flows up the east and west coasts. Some distance north of Tokyo, the east-coast current meets the cold Oyas.h.i.+ro current from Kamchatka, and is turned off towards America.

[168] See _A Free Farmer in a Free State_, pp. 173-4, for an account of the custom in Zeeland by which peasants preserved themselves from the calamity of childless marriage.

CHAPTER XXIII

A MIDNIGHT TALK

True religion is a relation, accordant with reason and knowledge, which man establishes with the infinite life surrounding him, and it is such as binds his life to that infinity, and guides his conduct.--TOLSTOY

One of the most instructive experiences I had during my rural journeys occurred one night when I was staying at a country inn. At a late hour I was told that the Governor of the prefecture was in a room overhead.

I had called on him a few days before in his prefectural capital. He was a large daimyo-like figure, dignified and courteous, but seemingly impenetrable. There was no depth in our talk. His aloof and uncommunicative manner was deterring, but by this time I had learnt the elementary lesson of unending patience and freedom from hasty judgment that is the first step to an advance in knowledge of another race. I felt that I should like to know more about the man inside this Excellency. No one had told me anything of his life.

Now that he was in the same inn with me it was j.a.panese good manners to pay him a visit. So I went upstairs with my travelling companion, telling him on the way that we should not remain more than five minutes. We were wearing our bath kimonos. The Governor was also at his ease in one of these garments. He was kneeling at a low table reading. We knelt at the other side, spoke on general topics, asked one or two questions and began to take our leave. On this the Governor said that he would like very much to ask me in turn some questions. We spoke together until one in the morning, his Excellency continually expressing his unwillingness for us to go. He spoke rapidly and with such earnestness that I was balked of understanding what he said sentence by sentence. The next day my companion wrote out a summary of what the Governor had said and I had tried to say in reply. As a brief report of a talk of three hours' duration it is plainly imperfect. The artless account is of some interest, however, because it furnishes an impression at once of an engaging simplicity and sincerity in the j.a.panese character and of the pressure of Western ideas.