110
Rice at 212 rios. Freight per junk to Yedo or vice versâ is paid in kind and amounts to one-fifth of the cargo.
From Shira-oy to Horo-bets, distance about 1334 miles. Just outside the station a long bridge spans the river. Further on forded two rivers where the bridges had been washed away, and ferried over another where they have not yet built a bridge. The bridges are a fair sample of Japanese Government contract work (i. e. bad work). The road leads over two hills and then down again into the level plain bordering on the sea. The escarpment down the last hill shews a layer of igneous rock overlying huge beds of pumice.
This portion of the road also shews that the Japanese have yet to learn how necessary it is to keep a road in repair. Here the drains were choked and the water had torn up the road in many places to such an extent as to render it impassable for wheeled vehicles.
Since reaching the coast I have observed that all the streams on nearing the beach turn south and run for some distance parallel to it before they discharge into the sea. This denotes that there prevails a current along this part of the coast setting to the southward. Passed several large fishing stations with Aino hunts contiguous. These appeared to be of a better class and more comfortable than those in the interior. The Aino children, also, were more numerous and well clad in bark cloth and skins.
At one station observed the process of launching the large boats used for shooting the seines in the sardine fishery. There was much surf on the beach. Twelve rowers sat in the boat which was placed on rollers on the crest of the beach, the nets stowed in the waist and aft. Some twenty men then caught hold of the boat and waiting for a favorable opportunity they launched her down the slope at a run, pushed her into the surf, the rowers immediately pulled hard and a few vigorous strokes took them outside the broken water.
In some places the beach was covered for long distances with thousands of mats on which the fish manure
