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SEEKERS AFTER GOD. 315
inces, was almost unknown in Echizen. Furthermore
certain other evil practices, so often indulged
in by the gentlemen of the province, were banished
to the sea-ports and places outside of the capital
city, so that if one desired to indulge in that which
is unseemly he was compelled to go to other places.
No one could live long within the province of Echi-
zen but would feel a healthful glow of intellectual
inquiry and love of study. He would also note the
hopeful expectation of a better state of things for
all Japan, as well as a general dissatisfaction with
that which was low and immoral and sensual. In a
word, this daimio's court in the little inland city
of Fukui was one of the bright spots of light and
civilization at this time.
A beginning was even made in the direction of
elevating the eta and hi-nin to something
like hu-
manity ; and many of the cruel practices and customs
of which the eta were victims were prohibited,
and they were treated with comparative kindness.
For years the most miserable of these creatures had
had no houses to live in, but only huts of straw ; or
they found shelter under the great bridge, to be
alternately drowned out or killed by the miasma of
the damp mud. The better portion of them, how-
ever, had houses, but no rights before the law.
Their name, eta, as the scholars discussed it, came
from , meaning flesh, especially of cows or horses
after flaying, and tori, taker or gatherer. The fact
that these people handled or sold meat or dead ani-
mals put them under the ban, first of Buddhism,