The Hat Is
Invariably Removed When They Speak To Each Other, And Three
Profound Bows Are Never Omitted.
Soon after leaving the yadoya we passed through a wide street with
the largest and handsomest houses I have
Yet seen on both sides.
They were all open in front; their highly-polished floors and
passages looked like still water; the kakemonos, or wall-pictures,
on their side-walls were extremely beautiful; and their mats were
very fine and white. There were large gardens at the back, with
fountains and flowers, and streams, crossed by light stone bridges,
sometimes flowed through the houses. From the signs I supposed
them to be yadoyas, but on asking Ito why we had not put up at one
of them, he replied that they were all kashitsukeya, or tea-houses
of disreputable character - a very sad fact. {8}
As we journeyed the country became prettier and prettier, rolling
up to abrupt wooded hills with mountains in the clouds behind. The
farming villages are comfortable and embowered in wood, and the
richer farmers seclude their dwellings by closely-clipped hedges,
or rather screens, two feet wide, and often twenty feet high. Tea
grew near every house, and its leaves were being gathered and dried
on mats. Signs of silk culture began to appear in shrubberies of
mulberry trees, and white and sulphur yellow cocoons were lying in
the sun along the road in flat trays. Numbers of women sat in the
fronts of the houses weaving cotton cloth fifteen inches wide, and
cotton yarn, mostly imported from England, was being dyed in all
the villages - the dye used being a native indigo, the Polygonum
tinctorium.
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