In An Hour The Malarious Plain Was Crossed, And We Have Been Among
Piles Of Mountains Ever Since.
The infamous road was so slippery
that my horse fell several times, and the baggage horse, with Ito
upon him, rolled head over heels, sending his miscellaneous pack in
all directions.
Good roads are really the most pressing need of
Japan. It would be far better if the Government were to enrich the
country by such a remunerative outlay as making passable roads for
the transport of goods through the interior, than to impoverish it
by buying ironclads in England, and indulging in expensive western
vanities.
That so horrible a road should have so good a bridge as that by
which we crossed the broad river Agano is surprising. It consists
of twelve large scows, each one secured to a strong cable of
plaited wistari, which crosses the river at a great height, so as
to allow of the scows and the plank bridge which they carry rising
and falling with the twelve feet variation of the water.
Ito's disaster kept him back for an hour, and I sat meanwhile on a
rice sack in the hamlet of Katakado, a collection of steep-roofed
houses huddled together in a height above the Agano. It was one
mob of pack-horses, over 200 of them, biting, squealing, and
kicking. Before I could dismount, one vicious creature struck at
me violently, but only hit the great wooden stirrup. I could
hardly find any place out of the range of hoofs or teeth.
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