The Officer Appointed By King Foyne To
Accompany Me, Took Up These Men And Horses By Warrants, From Time To
Time, and from place to place, just as post-horses are taken up in
England, and also procured us lodgings
At night; and, according to the
custom of the country, I had a slave to run before me, carrying a pike.
We thus travelled every day fifteen or sixteen leagues, which we
estimated at three miles the league, and arrived on the 6th of September
at Surunga,[16] where the emperor resided. The road for the most part
is wonderfully even, and where it meets with mountains, a passage is cut
through. This is the main road of the whole country, and, is mostly
covered with sand and gravel. It is regularly measured off into leagues,
and at every league there is a small hillock of earth on each side of
the road, upon each of which is set a fair pine-tree, trimmed round like
an arbour. These are placed at the end of every league, that the
hackney-men and horse-hirers may not exact more than their due, which is
about three-pence for each league.
[Footnote 16: Suruga, Surunga, or Sununnaga, is a town in the province
of that name, at the head of the gulf of Totomina, about 50 miles S.W.
from Jedo. - E.]
The road is much frequented, and very full of people. Every where, at
short distances, we came to farms and country-houses, with numerous
villages, and frequent large towns.
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