immoderate rain and waters." For myself, to be able to lie down
all day is something, and as "the mind, when in a healthy state,
reposes as quietly before an insurmountable difficulty as before an
ascertained truth," so, as I cannot get on, I have ceased to chafe,
and am rather inclined to magnify the advantages of the detention,
a necessary process, as you would think if you saw my surroundings!

The day before yesterday, in spite of severe pain, was one of the
most interesting of my journey. As I learned something of the
force of fire in Hawaii, I am learning not a little of the force of
water in Japan. We left Shirasawa at noon, as it looked likely to
clear, taking two horses and three men. It is beautiful scenery--a
wild valley, upon which a number of lateral ridges descend,
rendered strikingly picturesque by the dark pyramidal cryptomeria,
which are truly the glory of Japan. Five of the fords were deep
and rapid, and the entrance on them difficult, as the sloping
descents were all carried away, leaving steep banks, which had to
be levelled by the mattocks of the mago. Then the fords themselves
were gone; there were shallows where there had been depths, and
depths where there had been shallows; new channels were carved, and
great beds of shingle had been thrown up. Much wreckage lay about.
The road and its small bridges were all gone, trees torn up by the
roots or snapped short off by being struck by heavy logs were
heaped together like barricades, leaves and even bark being in many
cases stripped completely off; great logs floated down the river in
such numbers and with such force that we had to wait half an hour
in one place to secure a safe crossing; hollows were filled with
liquid mud, boulders of great size were piled into embankments,
causing perilous alterations in the course of the river; a fertile
valley had been utterly destroyed, and the men said they could