From Ashiyah my road follows up alongside a small tidal canal to Hakamatsu, traversing a lowland country, devoted entirely to the cultivation of rice.  Scores of coal-barges are floating along the canal, propelled solely by the flowing of the tide.  I can imagine them floating along until the tide changes, then tying up and waiting patiently until it ebbs and flows again; from long experience they, no doubt, have come to calculate upon one, two, or three tides, as the case may be, floating their barges up to certain landings or villages.

The streets of Hakamatsu present a lively and picturesque scene, swarming with country people in the gayest of costumes; the stalls are fairly groaning beneath big piles of tempting eatables, toys, clothing, lanterns, tissue-paper flowers, and every imaginable Japanese thing.  Street-men are attracting small crowds about them by displaying curiosities.  One old fellow I pause awhile to look at is selling tiny rolls of colored paper which, when cast into a bowl of water, unfold into flowers, boats, houses, birds, or animals.  In explanation of the holiday-making, a young man in a custom-house uniform, who knows a few words of English, explains “Japan God “-it is some religious festival these smiling, chatting, bowing, and comical-looking crowds are keeping with such evident relish.

Prom Hakamatsu to Kokura the country is hilly and broken; from Kokura one can look across the narrow strait and see Shimonoseki, on the mainland of Japan.  Thus far we have been traversing the island of Kiu-shiu, separated from the main island by a strait but a few hundred yards wide at Shimonoseki.  From Kokura the jinrikisha road leads a couple of ri farther to Dairi; thence footpaths traverse hills and wax-tree groves for another two miles (a ri is something over two English miles) to the village of Moji.  Here I obtain passage on a little ferry-boat across to Shimonoseki, arriving there about two o’clock in the afternoon.

A twenty-four hours’ halt is made at Shimonoseki in deference to rainy weather.  The landlady of the yadoya understands enough about European cookery to prepare me a very decent beefsteak and a pot of coffee.  Shimonoseki is full of European goods, and clever imitations of the same; a stroll of an hour through the streets reveals the extent of the Japs’ appreciation of foreign things.  Every other shop, almost, seems devoted to the goods that come from other countries, or their counterfeits.  Not content with merely copying an imported article, the Japanese artisan generally endeavors to make some improvement on the original.  For instance, after making an exact imitation of a petroleum-lamp, the Jap workman constructs a neat little lacquer cabinet to set it in when not in use.  The coffee-pot in which the coffee served at my yadoya is prepared is an ingenious contrivance with three chambers, evidently a reproduction of Yankee ingenuity.