It Is The Very Worst Road I Ever Rode
Over, And That Is Saying A Good Deal!
Kurumatoge was the last of
seventeen mountain-passes, over 2000 feet high, which I have
crossed since leaving Nikko.
Between it and Tsugawa the scenery,
though on a smaller scale, is of much the same character as
hitherto - hills wooded to their tops, cleft by ravines which open
out occasionally to divulge more distant ranges, all smothered in
greenery, which, when I am ill-pleased, I am inclined to call "rank
vegetation." Oh that an abrupt scaur, or a strip of flaming
desert, or something salient and brilliant, would break in, however
discordantly, upon this monotony of green!
The villages of that district must, I think, have reached the
lowest abyss of filthiness in Hozawa and Saikaiyama. Fowls, dogs,
horses, and people herded together in sheds black with wood smoke,
and manure heaps drained into the wells. No young boy wore any
clothing. Few of the men wore anything but the maro, the women
were unclothed to their waists and such clothing as they had was
very dirty, and held together by mere force of habit. The adults
were covered with inflamed bites of insects, and the children with
skin-disease. Their houses were dirty, and, as they squatted on
their heels, or lay face downwards, they looked little better than
savages. Their appearance and the want of delicacy of their habits
are simply abominable, and in the latter respect they contrast to
great disadvantage with several savage peoples that I have been
among.
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