It Is Made By Blind Men; But A Blind Beggar Is Never Seen Throughout Japan, And The Blind Are An Independent, Respected, And Well-To-Do Class, Carrying On The Occupations Of Shampooing, Money-Lending, And Music.

We have had a very severe journey from Toyoka.

That day the rain was ceaseless, and in the driving mists one could see little but low hills looming on the horizon, pine barrens, scrub, and flooded rice-fields; varied by villages standing along roads which were quagmires a foot deep, and where the clothing was specially ragged and dirty. Hinokiyama, a village of samurai, on a beautiful slope, was an exception, with its fine detached houses, pretty gardens, deep-roofed gateways, grass and stone-faced terraces, and look of refined, quiet comfort. Everywhere there was a quantity of indigo, as is necessary, for nearly all the clothing of the lower classes is blue. Near a large village we were riding on a causeway through the rice-fields, Ito on the pack-horse in front, when we met a number of children returning from school, who, on getting near us, turned, ran away, and even jumped into the ditches, screaming as they ran. The mago ran after them, caught the hindmost boy, and dragged him back - the boy scared and struggling, the man laughing. The boy said that they thought that Ito was a monkey-player, i.e. the keeper of a monkey theatre, I a big ape, and the poles of my bed the scaffolding of the stage!

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