51
tance was along the main road, which was crowded with market people, some loaded with vegetables in baskets slung across their shoulders, others leading ponies almost buried under huge panniers of all kinds of country produce. No wheeled vehicle did we see of any description on the whole journey.
Turning to the left, we followed a bridle path, which skirted the shore of a beautiful bay, dotted with small islands and fishing boats, and named after the Mississippi, one of the first American men-of-war that visited Japan. The country was very broken, full of hills and ravines, up and down which our pathway led, in many places so narrow that two horsemen could not ride abreast. From the summits of the hills we had beautiful views of the bay on our left, the white sails glistening in the morning sun, and on our right was a most, picturesque, undulating country, stretching many miles away, teeming with an industrious population. In the background, sixty miles distant, was the conical peak of “matchless Fusigama,” from base to summit white with snow, the lines clear and distinct against the blue sky.
The highly cultivated valleys were unmarred by fences, but divided off by embankments into paddy or rice fields at different levels, which permits them to be overflowed at certain seasons of the year. The ravines are terraced to the hill tops, the upper part being devoted to wheat and vegetables, while the lower half, as well as the valleys to which the ravines open, are given up to rice culture.
Our course lay through shaded lanes past brown farm houses with strawthatched roofs. Some green with moss and climbing plants, and shaded with handsome live-oak and evergreen trees over innumerable little rivulets, across which our ponies stepped daintily on plank or stone bridges, scarcely two feet in width, without railings or parapets on the sides. Then the path would lead along the narrow partitions between the rice fields, where a misstep would leave both horse and rider floundering in the mud. We passed several water wheels turning the rude machinery of rice mills, through frequent villages where the people, especially the women and children, turned out to see us go by, the latter greeting us with the salutation, “Ohaio!” “Ohaio!” It seemed as if at least one State of America
