At Horobets, Among Twenty Horses, There Was Not One That I
Would Take, - I Should Like To Have Had Them All Shot.
They are
cheap and abundant, and are of no account.
They drove a number
more down from the hills, and I chose the largest and finest horse
I have seen in Japan, with some spirit and action, but I soon found
that he had tender feet. We shortly left the high-road, and in
torrents of rain turned off on "unbeaten tracks," which led us
through a very bad swamp and some much swollen and very rough
rivers into the mountains, where we followed a worn-out track for
eight miles. It was literally "FOUL weather," dark and still, with
a brown mist, and rain falling in sheets. I threw my paper
waterproof away as useless, my clothes were of course soaked, and
it was with much difficulty that I kept my shomon and paper money
from being reduced to pulp. Typhoons are not known so far north as
Yezo, but it was what they call a "typhoon rain" without the
typhoon, and in no time it turned the streams into torrents barely
fordable, and tore up such of a road as there is, which at its best
is a mere water-channel. Torrents, bringing tolerable-sized
stones, tore down the track, and when the horses had been struck
two or three times by these, it was with difficulty that they could
be induced to face the rushing water.
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