In
Japan There Is A Land Transport Company, Called Riku-Un-Kaisha,
With A Head-Office In Tokiyo, And Branches In Various Towns And
Villages.
It arranges for the transport of travellers and
merchandise by pack-horses and coolies at certain fixed rates, and
gives receipts in due form.
It hires the horses from the farmers,
and makes a moderate profit on each transaction, but saves the
traveller from difficulties, delays, and extortions. The prices
vary considerably in different districts, and are regulated by the
price of forage, the state of the roads, and the number of hireable
horses. For a ri, nearly 2.5 miles, they charge from 6 to 10 sen
for a horse and the man who leads it, for a kuruma with one man
from 4 to 9 sen for the same distance, and for baggage coolies
about the same. [This Transport Company is admirably organised. I
employed it in journeys of over 1200 miles, and always found it
efficient and reliable.] I intend to make use of it always, much
against Ito's wishes, who reckoned on many a prospective "squeeze"
in dealings with the farmers.
My journey will now be entirely over "unbeaten tracks," and will
lead through what may be called "Old Japan;" and as it will be
natural to use Japanese words for money and distances, for which
there are no English terms, I give them here. A yen is a note
representing a dollar, or about 3s. 7d. of our money; a sen is
something less than a halfpenny; a rin is a thin round coin of iron
or bronze, with a square hole in the middle, of which 10 make a
sen, and 1000 a yen; and a tempo is a handsome oval bronze coin
with a hole in the centre, of which 5 make 4 sen.
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