Most Of
The Harvest Of Logs Cut On The Yadate Pass Must Have Been Lost, For
Over 300 Were Carried Down In The Short Time In Which I Watched The
River.
This is a very heavy loss to this village, which lives by
the timber trade.
Efforts were made at a bank higher up to catch
them as they drifted by, but they only saved about one in twenty.
It was most exciting to see the grand way in which these timbers
came down; and the moment in which they were to strike or not to
strike the pier was one of intense suspense. After an hour of this
two superb logs, fully thirty feet long, came down close together,
and, striking the central pier nearly simultaneously, it shuddered
horribly, the great bridge parted in the middle, gave an awful
groan like a living thing, plunged into the torrent, and re-
appeared in the foam below only as disjointed timbers hurrying to
the sea. Not a vestige remained. The bridge below was carried
away in the morning, so, till the river becomes fordable, this
little place is completely isolated. On thirty miles of road, out
of nineteen bridges only two remain, and the road itself is almost
wholly carried away!
LETTER XXVIII - (Continued)
Scanty Resources - Japanese Children - Children's Games - A Sagacious
Example - A Kite Competition - Personal Privations.
IKARIGASEKI.
I have well-nigh exhausted the resources of this place. They are
to go out three times a day to see how much the river has fallen;
to talk with the house-master and Kocho; to watch the children's
games and the making of shingles; to buy toys and sweetmeats and
give them away; to apply zinc lotion to a number of sore eyes three
times daily, under which treatment, during three days, there has
been a wonderful amendment; to watch the cooking, spinning, and
other domestic processes in the daidokoro; to see the horses, which
are also actually in it, making meals of green leaves of trees
instead of hay; to see the lepers, who are here for some waters
which are supposed to arrest, if not to cure, their terrible
malady; to lie on my stretcher and sew, and read the papers of the
Asiatic Society, and to go over all possible routes to Aomori.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 247 of 417
Words from 67856 to 68240
of 115002
