Running through the village[195] is a river. Most of the summer it may be crossed by stepping stones, but the width of the rocky bed gives some notion of the volume of water which pours down after rains and on the melting of the snow. Two or three miles up from the village a considerable amount of water is drawn off into two channels which have been dug, one on either side of the river, at a gentler slope than that at which the stream flows. The rapid fall of the river is indicated by the fact that these channels reach the village more than 100 ft. above the level at which the river itself enters it. The channels, cut as they have been through sharply sloping banks packed with boulders and big stones, and strengthened throughout by banking, in order to cope as far as possible with the torrents which rage down the hillside in winter, represent a vast amount of communal labour. By the side of each channel the excavated earth and stones have been used to make a path for pack horses. The water which comes down these channels serves not only for the ordinary uses of the village but for irrigating the rice fields and for driving the many water wheels, the plashing and groaning of which are heard night and day. [Illustration: THE BUDDHIST TEMPLE (WITH SHINTO SHRINE ON THE LEFT) IN WHICH THIS CHAPTER WAS WRITTEN] The whole area of the _oaza_ is officially recorded as 800 _chō_, but the real area may be double, or even more than that. About 40 per cent. is cultivated either as paddy or as dry land. The remaining 60 per cent., from which 18 _chō_ may be deducted for house land, is under grass and wood. Half of this grass and woodland belongs to the _oaza_ and half to private persons. The grass is mostly couch grass and weeds. In places there is a certain amount of clover and vetch. Of the 200 families, numbering about 1,700 people, less than a dozen are tenants. Of the others, a third cultivate their own land and hire some more. The remaining two-thirds cultivate their own land and hire none. The outstanding crop beyond rice is mulberry. A considerable amount of millet and buckwheat is also grown. The village is obviously well off. The signs are: successful sericulture, the large quantity of rice eaten, the number of well-looking horses (the millet seems to be grown largely for them, but they also receive beans and wheat boiled), the fact that no attempt is made to collect the considerable amount of horse manure on the roads, the cared-for appearance of the temple and shrines, the almost complete absence of tea-houses, the ease with which new land may be obtained and the contented look of the people.