A Single Look At Hakodate Itself Makes One Feel That It Is Japan
All Over.
The streets are very wide and clean, but the houses are
mean and low.
The city looks as if it had just recovered from a
conflagration. The houses are nothing but tinder. The grand tile
roofs of some other cities are not to be seen. There is not an
element of permanence in the wide, and windy streets. It is an
increasing and busy place; it lies for two miles along the shore,
and has climbed the hill till it can go no higher; but still houses
and people look poor. It has a skeleton aspect too, which is
partially due to the number of permanent "clothes-horses" on the
roofs. Stones, however, are its prominent feature. Looking down
upon it from above you see miles of grey boulders, and realise that
every roof in the windy capital is "hodden doun" by a weight of
paving stones. Nor is this all. Some of the flatter roofs are
pebbled all over like a courtyard, and others, such as the roof of
this house, for instance, are covered with sod and crops of grass,
the two latter arrangements being precautions against risks from
sparks during fires. These paving stones are certainly the
cheapest possible mode of keeping the roofs on the houses in such a
windy region, but they look odd.
None of the streets, except one high up the hill, with a row of
fine temples and temple grounds, call for any notice.
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