Except that the houses of the village we were visiting looked possibly a trifle more primitive than those of the non-Eta population outside the _oaza_, I did not discern anything different from what I saw elsewhere. The people were of the Shinshu sect; there was no Shinto shrine. At the public room I noticed the gymnastic apparatus of the "fire defenders." The hamlet was traditionally 300 years old and one family was still recognised as chief. According to the constable, who eagerly imparted the information, the crops were larger than those of neighbouring villages "because the people, male and female, are always diligent." The man who was brought forward as the representative of the village was an ex-soldier and seemed a quiet, able and self-respecting but sad human being. His house and holding were in excellent order. None of his neighbours smiled on us. Some I thought went indoors needlessly; a few came as near to glowering as can be expected in Japan. I got the impression that the people were cared for but were conscious of being "hauden doon" or kept at arm's length.[179] Our next stop was for a rest in a fine garden, the effect of which was spoilt in one place by a distressing life-size statue of the owner's father. When we took to our _kuruma_ again we passed through a village at the approaches to which thick straw ropes such as are seen at shrines had been stretched across the road. Charms were attached. The object was to keep off an epidemic. The indigo leaves drying on mats in front of some of the cottages were a delight to the eye. There were also mats covered with cotton which looked like fluffy cocoons. On the telegraph wires, the poles of which all over Japan take short cuts through the paddies, swallows clustered as in England, but it is to the South Seas, not to Africa, that the Japanese swallow migrates. When the telegraph was a newer feature of the Japanese landscape than it is now swallows on the wires were a favourite subject for young painters. We crossed a dry river bed of considerable width at a place where the current had made an excavation in the gravel, rocks and earth several yards deep. It was an impressive illustration of the power of a heavy flood.