It Is So
Beautifully Clean That, As At Nikko, I Should Feel Reluctant To
Walk Upon Its Well-Swept Streets In Muddy Boots.
It would afford a
good lesson to the Edinburgh authorities, for every vagrant bit of
straw, stick, or paper, is at once pounced upon and removed, and no
rubbish may stand for an instant in its streets except in a covered
box or bucket.
It is correctly laid out in square divisions,
formed by five streets over a mile long, crossed by very numerous
short ones, and is intersected by canals, which are its real
roadways. I have not seen a pack-horse in the streets; everything
comes in by boat, and there are few houses in the city which cannot
have their goods delivered by canal very near to their doors.
These water-ways are busy all day, but in the early morning, when
the boats come in loaded with the vegetables, without which the
people could not exist for a day, the bustle is indescribable. The
cucumber boats just now are the great sight. The canals are
usually in the middle of the streets, and have fairly broad
roadways on both sides. They are much below the street level, and
their nearly perpendicular banks are neatly faced with wood, broken
at intervals by flights of stairs. They are bordered by trees,
among which are many weeping willows; and, as the river water runs
through them, keeping them quite sweet, and they are crossed at
short intervals by light bridges, they form a very attractive
feature of Niigata.
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