LETTER XV.—(Concluded)

Summary

We changed horses at Tajima, formerly a daimiyô's residence, and, for a Japanese town, rather picturesque. It makes and exports clogs, coarse pottery, coarse lacquer, and coarse baskets.

After travelling through rice-fields varying from thirty yards square to a quarter of an acre, with the tops of the dykes utilised by planting dwarf beans along them, we came to a large river, the Arakai, along whose affluents we had been tramping for two days, and, after passing through several filthy villages, thronged with filthy and industrious inhabitants, crossed it in a scow. High forks planted securely in the bank on either side sustained a rope formed of several strands of the wistaria knotted together. One man hauled on this hand over hand, another poled at the stern, and the rapid current did the rest. In this fashion we have crossed many rivers subsequently. Tariffs of charges are posted at all ferries, as well as at all bridges where charges are made, and a man sits in an office to receive the money.

The wistaria, which is largely used where a strength and durability exceeding that of ordinary cables is required, seems universal. As a dwarf it covers the hills and road-sides, and as an aggressive liana it climbs the tallest trees and occasionally kills them, cramping and compressing them mercilessly, and finally riots in its magnificant luxuriance over their dead branches.