It might be supposed that beauty had gone from the countryside. Some of what the land agents call the amenities of the district had certainly disappeared. There seemed to be nowhere for the pedestrian to sit down in order to refresh himself with those rural sights and sounds which exhilarate the spirit. But this marvellously delved, methodised and trimmed countryside had a character and a stimulus of its own. It reflected the energy and persistence that had subdued it. I saw nothing ugly. The tidied rice plots, shaped at every possible curve and angle, and eloquent of centuries of unremitting toil; the upland beyond them, worked to a skilled perfection of finish; the nesting houses which nowhere offended the eye; the big still ponds contrived by the rude forefathers of the hamlet for water storage or the succour of the rice in the hottest weather; the low hilltops green with pine because cultivation could not ascend so far, and hiding here and there a Shinto sanctuary: such a countryside was satisfying in its own way. In Chiba, as in other prefectures, one is impressed by the way in which the exertions of many generations have resulted in the levelling of wide areas and even the complete removal of small hills. In many places one can still see low hills in process of demolition. In Tokyo itself several small hills have been carried off in recent years. I was in Chiba several times and I remember to have noticed one winter day with what considered roughness the paddies had been dug in order to receive from frost and sun the benefits which are as good as a manuring. Some notion of the strength of the weather forces at work may be gathered from the fact that, though I was walking without an overcoat and was glad to shade my eyes by pulling down the brim of my hat, the frost of the two previous nights had produced ice on the paddies an inch thick. Sometimes at the irrigation reservoirs one may see notice boards announcing that these water areas are stocked with _koi_ (carp). This fish is also kept in the paddies. The carp are put in as yearlings or two-year-olds, when the paddies are flooded, and a score out of every hundred come out in the autumn--assuming the happiest conditions--ten inches or so long. Carp culture flourishes in the sericulture districts, where the pupæ which remain when the cocoons are unwound are thrown to the fish; but pupæ fed carp have a flavour which diminishes their value. Indeed paddy-field fish, which on the whole must have a rather troubled existence, do not bring the price of river carp. Other fish than carp, eels for instance, are also kept in paddies.[206]