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158 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
whose fief, or district governed by a daimio, he was
born. Only on one of three great
occasions could
lads whose fathers received a salary of only five
hundred bushels of rice be presented to the daimio.
These were at the ceremony of taking
the oath of
allegiance when thirteen years old, after marriage,
and on succeeding to the father's income. On the
important occasion of becoming a vassal the young
man presented his lord with an arrow, in token of loyalty,
or with two hundred copper coins, for the war-
In some of the
fund to be used in time of hostilities.
citadels of the feudal castles, the trap-door of the
entrance to them being under the bed of the lord,
there were subterranean chambers of gra-nite
and
iron in which the offerings of retainers thus made
were stored until the accumulation ran into mighty
sums of gold and silver.
We might
tell more of the lights and shadows of
life in one of the petty principalities in the days
when Japan was cut up into fractions, but we must
hasten with our story. Of Echizen it is truth and
not fiction to say that the people in it were as happy
as in any other province of Japan. The samurai
and the people both loved their lord, Matsudaira,
who was both enlightened and benevolent. It was
with a view to the bettering of his people that he
had encouraged such men as Doctor Sano and had
invited to his dominions such scholars as Professor
Koba. The land was well tilled and the farmers
toiled in sunny content. Many new hillsides were
terraced with rice-fields and waste lands brought