The Government Buildings, Though In The Usual Confectionery Style,
Are Improved By The Addition Of Verandahs; And The Kencho,
Saibancho, Or Court House, The Normal School With Advanced Schools
Attached, And The Police Buildings, Are All In Keeping With The
Good Road And Obvious Prosperity.
A large two-storied hospital,
with a cupola, which will accommodate 150 patients, and is to be a
medical school, is nearly finished.
It is very well arranged and
ventilated. I cannot say as much for the present hospital, which I
went over. At the Court House I saw twenty officials doing
nothing, and as many policemen, all in European dress, to which
they had added an imitation of European manners, the total result
being unmitigated vulgarity. They demanded my passport before they
would tell me the population of the ken and city. Once or twice I
have found fault with Ito's manners, and he has asked me twice
since if I think them like the manners of the policemen at
Yamagata!
North of Yamagata the plain widens, and fine longitudinal ranges
capped with snow mountains on the one side, and broken ranges with
lateral spurs on the other, enclose as cheerful and pleasant a
region as one would wish to see, with many pleasant villages on the
lower slopes of the hills. The mercury was only 70 degrees, and
the wind north, so it was an especially pleasant journey, though I
had to go three and a half ri beyond Tendo, a town of 5000 people,
where I had intended to halt, because the only inns at Tendo which
were not kashitsukeya were so occupied with silk-worms that they
could not receive me.
The next day's journey was still along the same fine road, through
a succession of farming villages and towns of 1500 and 2000 people,
such as Tochiida and Obanasawa, were frequent. From both these
there was a glorious view of Chokaizan, a grand, snow-covered dome,
said to be 8000 feet high, which rises in an altogether unexpected
manner from comparatively level country, and, as the great snow-
fields of Udonosan are in sight at the same time, with most
picturesque curtain ranges below, it may be considered one of the
grandest views of Japan. After leaving Obanasawa the road passes
along a valley watered by one of the affluents of the Mogami, and,
after crossing it by a fine wooden bridge, ascends a pass from
which the view is most magnificent. After a long ascent through a
region of light, peaty soil, wooded with pine, cryptomeria, and
scrub oak, a long descent and a fine avenue terminate in Shinjo, a
wretched town of over 5000 people, situated in a plain of rice-
fields.
The day's journey, of over twenty-three miles, was through villages
of farms without yadoyas, and in many cases without even tea-
houses. The style of building has quite changed. Wood has
disappeared, and all the houses are now built with heavy beams and
walls of laths and brown mud mixed with chopped straw, and very
neat. Nearly all are great oblong barns, turned endwise to the
road, 50, 60, and even 100 feet long, with the end nearest the road
the dwelling-house. These farm-houses have no paper windows, only
amado, with a few panes of paper at the top. These are drawn back
in the daytime, and, in the better class of houses, blinds, formed
of reeds or split bamboo, are let down over the opening. There are
no ceilings, and in many cases an unmolested rat snake lives in the
rafters, who, when he is much gorged, occasionally falls down upon
a mosquito net.
Again I write that Shinjo is a wretched place. It is a daimiyo's
town, and every daimiyo's town that I have seen has an air of
decay, partly owing to the fact that the castle is either pulled
down, or has been allowed to fall into decay. Shinjo has a large
trade in rice, silk, and hemp, and ought not to be as poor as it
looks. The mosquitoes were in thousands, and I had to go to bed,
so as to be out of their reach, before I had finished my wretched
meal of sago and condensed milk. There was a hot rain all night,
my wretched room was dirty and stifling, and rats gnawed my boots
and ran away with my cucumbers.
To-day the temperature is high and the sky murky. The good road
has come to an end, and the old hardships have begun again. After
leaving Shinjo this morning we crossed over a steep ridge into a
singular basin of great beauty, with a semicircle of pyramidal
hills, rendered more striking by being covered to their summits
with pyramidal cryptomeria, and apparently blocking all northward
progress. At their feet lies Kanayama in a romantic situation,
and, though I arrived as early as noon, I am staying for a day or
two, for my room at the Transport Office is cheerful and pleasant,
the agent is most polite, a very rough region lies before me, and
Ito has secured a chicken for the first time since leaving Nikko!
I find it impossible in this damp climate, and in my present poor
health, to travel with any comfort for more than two or three days
at a time, and it is difficult to find pretty, quiet, and wholesome
places for a halt of two nights. Freedom from fleas and mosquitoes
one can never hope for, though the last vary in number, and I have
found a way of "dodging" the first by laying down a piece of oiled
paper six feet square upon the mat, dusting along its edges a band
of Persian insect powder, and setting my chair in the middle. I am
then insulated, and, though myriads of fleas jump on the paper, the
powder stupefies them, and they are easily killed. I have been
obliged to rest here at any rate, because I have been stung on my
left hand both by a hornet and a gadfly, and it is badly inflamed.
In some places the hornets are in hundreds, and make the horses
wild.
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