After a rather fruitless couple of hours in the mine (results locally interesting, as the Imperial Survey has mapped the district as solid granite) I had six hours in a _kuruma_ returning to Tatai. The _kuruma_ was just as uncomfortable as country ones always are, and as I was packed in with my fossils so that I could not change my position, and the roads were in places very bad, I was hardly in the mood at the end of the journey to be put into a train, merely to wait stock-still at the first local stopping-place for three-quarters of an hour. I am becoming far more patient than Job ever was, but at times my stock of patience runs out.
Apart from the mere weariness of one’s bones, the _kuruma_ ride was very delightful. Every time I see the little groves of feathery bamboo in their grace and sweetness I rejoice anew. The valleys along which the road wound were very steep, and the great granite hills majestic and beautiful. The plants, too, are often charming, and one frequently sees a single trail of ampelopsis flung across the grey boulders. One great wall of granite was covered with blood-red ampelopsis and capped with the native pine, which is so rich in curious curves, and so green against the sapphire sky.
Although the country is quite wild and unspoiled, all along the flatter part of the valleys were very many houses--clusters of houses or hamlets lying at intervals of about one-eighth of a mile. It seems curious how the little rice fields, which are tucked into every available damp corner, can support so many people. Straw plaiting is also a source of income, and in almost every house some one was twisting the short lengths of gleaming white straw into braids.
The greatest charm of Japan is the way the natives have of inhabiting, even thickly populating, a district without in the least spoiling it--except of course where there is a railway, a few yards on either side are necessarily spoiled a little.
The single line of telegraph wire puzzled me not a little to-day. I could not imagine why, when it was raised in the usual way on posts 20 feet or more, it should be made of _barbed wire_, when I discovered that the effect was caused by millions of dragon-flies, perched singly on it at intervals of about 6 inches from each other! I never saw two closer than that, or more than 18 inches apart, for about 10 miles! Now and then one would fly off, or another settle, but most of them sat quite motionless on the wire. So the only “barbed wire” I have seen in Japan was made voluntarily by blue dragon-flies who sat there to sun themselves.