Page:TASJ-1-3.djvu/258

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36

taki, 275 feet high, is only 41/2 miles from here, and strong hot sulphur springs are found close to the village, and within the bay. So strong and effectual are the waters, that seven days bathing is professedly ample time to cure the worst form of scabies; and fourteen for other diseases more serious than ordinary cutaneous affections.

The waterfalls—for there are three—follow at a short distance from each other, in the following order. The lowest is 275 feet high and has a clean drop, coming over a mass of rock which forms the back of an amphitheatre-shaped mountain. It falls into a deep pool, then rushing amongst great boulders for some distance, finds the more level valley further on, and reaches the sea just behind Katsura. On following the stream for 300 yards or so from the top of this fall, the second is reached. This, like the first, falls over a slab of rock seventy feet or so in height, into a beautiful clear pool, which is shut in all round; and so near do the trees approach overhead, growing out and almost hanging from the rocks, that at first sight they almost appear to touch. The only outlet to this extraordinary place for a river to find its way to, is its own course, as it flows, or to the great fall. Above the second fall there is another about fifty feet in height. They are all very beautiful, but the second is as wonderful as it is beautiful.

Near the lowest fail is a cluster of temples, with a grand old avenue leading up to them. One of the sugi trees, which had been cut down, I made out to be 283 years old; which agreed within a few years of the date given by the Japanese. Here the head of all the Shinto priests resides and the principal temple is built.

A short way north of Katsura, the previously broken and rugged coast line gives place to a long straight stretch of sand and pebbled beach, which runs N. E. without a break for 15 miles, butting up against a steep promontory, the beginning again of a wild, broken line of coast, which, still keeping the same N. E. direction, continues 70 miles to Toba, at the entrance of the Owari Gulf. Harbours and bays with water too deep for an-