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last-mentioned ridge of hills at a point called the Tsugaruzaka the ascent of which is somewhat tedious, though there is a nice view to be had when the top is reached, of Iwakiyama and of the valley in which Hirozaki lies. In the district between Awomori and the Tsugaruzaka the chief product is of course rice, but the cultivation is altogether very scanty. Some of the hills were covered with a coarse-locking medium-sized bush which, seen from a distance bears a certain resemblance to the mulberry-plant, though the leaf is larger. The name given by the Japanese to the plant is Gomagiri, and the bark is employed to make the incense-sticks in common use in Japanese temples. The Sasa or scrub-bamboo, dwarf-oak, and ordinary pine grow everywhere in great profusion. On the other side of the Tsugaruzaka the country opens out into a broad valley in which the villages of Namioka, Fujizaki, and the town of Hirozaki are situated, and which is bounded by the two ranges of hills already mentioned. The scenery loses much of its desolateness, the broad valley full of rice presenting a cheerful contrast to the country already passed through. The valley is watered by the Hiragawa which flows through it from North-East and South-West, and is crossed by the road some two miles from Namioka. The river when we saw it was only about thirty yards wide, but in flood it attains a considerable breadth. The houses in the villages along the road are almost all built of clay with slight wooden frames, but the better class of buildings in the villages and the houses in the towns are ordinary wooden structures, presenting in point of architecture no marked difference to those seen in Yedo and its environs. I should not forget to mention the water-melons, which one sees everywhere growing in the wildest profusion, sometimes trailing up the sides of the houses and almost hiding the roofs altogether from view with their rich luxuriance of foliage, and at other times forming the hedge-row to a garden. All the way from Awomori to Niigata water-melons are grown, and as they are also found in great quantities down south, this plant may be said to be
