Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/341

 and the real roof. The thin wood acted as a sounding-board, and their scampering and racing, and the thud of the pursuing weasels, was an all-night and every-night affair. The Japanese themselves seem to feel no hostility towards rats and mice, and at Yaami’s and at Nara the proprietor and staff sit quietly in the great office and kitchen-room, which are so nearly one, and allow these followers of Daikoku to scamper over their ledgers, between the groups on the mats, and to perform feats of racing and balancing on the rafters overhead.

The flimsiness of our little house, no less than the absurd walls and gates of the moated demesne, seemed to invite robbery, but in that Arcadia there were no robbers. The habitation was left alone for hours with every screen wide open, and countless things in view that might have tempted curious handling at least, but nothing was disturbed nor lost, there was no provision for locking the screens of any room, nor for making the amados proof against any amateur burglar, the need of such a protection never having been felt—a sufficient commentary on the people.

Nesans, coolies, and small boys were all so individual, so characteristically Japanese, so untouched by and unused to foreign influences, that they were an unceasing delight; and so unintentionally theatrical and picturesque that for day after day we felt ourselves to be living in a theatre, and Nara’s hill-side to be one vast evolving stage. We had easily fallen into the serene and peaceful routine of Nara life, and become so interested in those surrounding us, that there was a real sadness on our own part when easel, camera, and koris were packed, and those simple, affectionate people bade us their tearful sayonaras.

It was a rainy morning, and the green rice plain looked greener under the gray sky as we rode away from Nara. Men and women were working in the fields, wading 325