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and the province of Musashi, is said to be 135 ri, 32 chô, or a little over 323 miles, in length. The longest high-road is the Ôshiu kaidô between Yedo and Awomori on the Tsuruga Straits. It traverses Musashi, Shimotsuké, Iwashiro, Rikuzen, Rikuchiu and Michinoku, and its length is given as 181 ri, 6 chô, or nearly 444 miles.
Two roads from Yedo to Niigata exist, the one by way of Takasaki in Jôshiu, over the Mikuni pass into Echigo, the other by Oiwaké, Zenkôji, Takata and Kashiwazaki. The former, which is said to be impassable in winter, measures 91 ri, 29 chô, or about 225 miles, the latter 108 ri, 17 chô, or about 264 miles. Neither possesses a name, and for a considerable distance each is identical with the Nakasendo. Another road which possesses great interest for the traveller in search of mountain scenery is the Kôshiu kaidô. It unites Yedo and the town of Kôfu, distant from each other 31 ri 14 chô, or 77 miles, and a continuation of it from Kôfu joins the Nakasendô at Shimo-no-suwa, 13 ri, 6 chô, or about 32 miles further. The book of itineraries called Gokai-dôchiu-saikenki contains the itineraries of thirty-seven roads, all of which lie on the east of Kiôto. There are of course high-roads on the west of Kiôto, but they are of less importance because there is little traffic in the Sanindô, and that of the Sanyôdô is conducted in junks which ply on the Inland Sea. I have heard Europeans call the read which passes through Kôbé westwards to Shimonoséki ‘Tôkaidô,’ but this is an error. It is not even called Sanyôdô after the circuit which it traverses.
In a work on general geography lately published by the Education Department (entitled Yochi shiriaku) the area of Japan is stated to be 24,780 square ri, or taking the linear ri as equal to 2.45 English miles, about 148,742 miles. This is about one fourth more than the area of the United Kingdom, which contains 121,115 square miles. The Japanese estimate cannot be looked upon as exact, since it is founded on maps which are far from correct. The population is generally asserted to be about 30,000,000, the authority being a census made in 1804, which was
