several raised banks, and you can take one step from the hillside
to a dead level. The soil is dry and gravelly at the junction,
ridges of pines appeared, and the look of the houses suggested
increased cleanliness and comfort. A walk of six miles took us
from Tenoko to Komatsu, a beautifully situated town of 3000 people,
with a large trade in cotton goods, silk, and sake.

As I entered Komatsu the first man whom I met turned back hastily,
called into the first house the words which mean "Quick, here's a
foreigner;" the three carpenters who were at work there flung down
their tools and, without waiting to put on their kimonos, sped down
the street calling out the news, so that by the time I reached the
yadoya a large crowd was pressing upon me. The front was mean and
unpromising-looking, but, on reaching the back by a stone bridge
over a stream which ran through the house, I found a room 40 feet
long by 15 high, entirely open along one side to a garden with a
large fish-pond with goldfish, a pagoda, dwarf trees, and all the
usual miniature adornments. Fusuma of wrinkled blue paper splashed
with gold turned this "gallery" into two rooms; but there was no
privacy, for the crowds climbed upon the roofs at the back, and sat
there patiently until night.

These were daimiyo's rooms. The posts and ceilings were ebony and
gold, the mats very fine, the polished alcoves decorated with
inlaid writing-tables and sword-racks; spears nine feet long, with
handles of lacquer inlaid with Venus' ear, hung in the verandah,
the washing bowl was fine inlaid black lacquer, and the rice-bowls
and their covers were gold lacquer.

In this, as in many other yadoyas, there were kakemonos with large