Government spy, and cautioned us against talking too freely. But, as it happened, the caution was superfluous, for the dignified old fellow spoke in such queer dialect that I could understand very few of his remarks, and conversation soon lapsed into an interchange of bows and smiles. Only one other circumstance occurred in the Kogakuro, during the fortnight we spent there, to excite interest. One morning we found the cheery little landlord very depressed because a fraudulent guest had decamped during the night without paying his bill. Of course, he had only to shoot aside the wooden shutters, and the further feat of "shooting the moon" presented no difficulty.
In this dearth of human subjects to study we acquired a habit of making daily expeditions to neighbouring localities, and were often repaid by beautiful sights. Within two hours' walking distance lies the lake of Nogiri, which is larger than Lake Haruna, but not so prettily environed. On a densely wooded islet stands a temple of Benten, "the goddess of luck, eloquence, and fertility," to which we were ferried across by an obliging schoolboy. Before it stand two immense cedars, of which one boasts a girth of twenty-seven feet. A long flight of steps leads from the shore of the island to the shrine, and, viewed from the summit of the steps, the belt of mountains which rim the horizon amply rewards the climber. Except for this view, however, Nogiri is in itself an ordinary unromantic piece of water.
Far more exceptional is the important town of Takata, several hundred feet below the level of Taguchi, from which the railway descends a steep valley between mountain walls precipitously grand. Thousands of feet above snow is surmised, waterfalls
