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Awomori is the fact of its being the principal outlet, so to speak, of the large yearly emigration of the country people who flock in large numbers in the spring of every year to Hakodate—either to join the fisheries on the coast of Yesso, or to pick up what living they can in Hakodate and its neighbourhood, returning as regularly in the autumn to their native places.
Considering the comparatively short period during which out-door work can be carried on in the northern parts of Japan, it seems strange that these people should choose for their periodical flitting the very time of year when, as one would be apt to think, their labour would pay them best; and the reason assigned—which the fact of the yearly emigration itself proves to be in a measure correct—namely,—that the fisheries are so lucrative that the amount which they earn by this livelihood serves not only to keep them through the winter months, but to defray the cost of their journeys to and fro—leads us to infer that agriculture in these northern districts of the country is not a remunerative pursuit. This emigration is not confined to the male portion of the population; the women emigrate in just as large if not in larger numbers than the men.
At Awomori commences the long chain of hills which runs down intersecting the country from north to south as far as Takasaki and on through Shinshiu. A lesser ridge of hills has a direction from north-east to south-west, but is irregular, there being breaks at intervals and some of the peaks being much higher than others. In this last chain is the mountain Iwakiyama, which like so many other mountains in Japan is shaped like a volcano, and stands out a little distance from the rest of the chain. It is of course impossible to form any accurate conclusion as to the height of a mountain without ascending it, but judging from the size of the hills near Iwakiyama ever which we passed we estimated its height roughly at about 5,000 feet.
Proceeding from Awamori towards Namioka, the first post stage on the road to Hirozaki, one passes over the
