Society is kept in animation by the customary and by sentiment.--MEREDITH Six feet of snow is common on the line on which we travelled in Yamagata prefecture, and washouts are not infrequent. A train has been stopped for a week by snow. It was difficult to think of snow when one saw groups of pilgrims with their flopping sun-mats on their backs. The shrines on three local mountain tops are visited by 20,000 people yearly. We bought at railway stations different sorts of gelatinous fruit preparations. Most places in Japan have a speciality in the form of a food or a curiosity that can be bought by travellers. In the great Shonai plain, which extends through three counties, there are no fewer than 82,500 acres of rice and the unending crops were a sight to see. A great deal of the paddy land has been adjusted. In one county there is the largest adjusted area in Japan, 20,000 acres. When one raises one's eyes from the waving fields of illimitable rice, the dominating feature of the landscape is Mount Chokai with his August snow cap. The three-storey hotel at which we stayed had been taken to pieces and transported twenty miles. Such removal of houses to a more convenient or, in the case of an hotel, a more profitable site, is not uncommon. I sometimes patronised at Omori a large hotel on a little hill halfway between Yokohama and Tokyo, which had formerly been the prefectural building at Kanagawa. In the hotel in which I was now staying I was interested in the "Notice" in my room: 1. A spitting-pot is provided. [Usually of bamboo or porcelain.] 2. No towels are lent for fear of _trachoma_.[158] [The traveller in Japan carries his own towels, but a towel is a common gift on a guest's departure in acknowledgment of his tea money.] 3. There is a table of rates. Guests are requested to say in which they desire to be reckoned. [To the hotel proprietor, landlord or manager when the visit of courtesy is paid on the guest's arrival. Otherwise a judgment is formed from the guest's clothes, demeanour and baggage.] 4. Please lock up your valuables or let us keep them. [There are no locks on Japanese doors.] 5. Railroad, _kuruma_, box-sledge or automobile charges on application. [The box-sledge shows what the country is like in winter.] In conversations about local conditions I was told that "landowners of the middle grade" were suffering from "trying to keep up their position." I remembered the song which may be rendered: Would that my daughter Were married to a middle farmer. With two _chō_ of farm And a _tan_ in the wood. No borrowing; no lending; Both ends meeting. Visiting the temple by turns-- Someone must stay at home. Going to Heaven sooner or later. What a happy life! What a happy life!