road, 50, 60, and even 100 feet long, with the end nearest the road
the dwelling-house. These farm-houses have no paper windows, only
amado, with a few panes of paper at the top. These are drawn back
in the daytime, and, in the better class of houses, blinds, formed
of reeds or split bamboo, are let down over the opening. There are
no ceilings, and in many cases an unmolested rat snake lives in the
rafters, who, when he is much gorged, occasionally falls down upon
a mosquito net.

Again I write that Shinjo is a wretched place. It is a daimiyo's
town, and every daimiyo's town that I have seen has an air of
decay, partly owing to the fact that the castle is either pulled
down, or has been allowed to fall into decay. Shinjo has a large
trade in rice, silk, and hemp, and ought not to be as poor as it
looks. The mosquitoes were in thousands, and I had to go to bed,
so as to be out of their reach, before I had finished my wretched
meal of sago and condensed milk. There was a hot rain all night,
my wretched room was dirty and stifling, and rats gnawed my boots
and ran away with my cucumbers.

To-day the temperature is high and the sky murky. The good road
has come to an end, and the old hardships have begun again. After
leaving Shinjo this morning we crossed over a steep ridge into a
singular basin of great beauty, with a semicircle of pyramidal
hills, rendered more striking by being covered to their summits
with pyramidal cryptomeria, and apparently blocking all northward
progress. At their feet lies Kanayama in a romantic situation,
and, though I arrived as early as noon, I am staying for a day or
two, for my room at the Transport Office is cheerful and pleasant,
the agent is most polite, a very rough region lies before me, and