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road led as over the crest of a densely wooded hill some 500 feet high, and it was all the ponies could do to carry us up, the path being entirely composed, as is not uncommon in mountain tracks in Japan, of small logs of wood cut to the same size and laid so as to form steps up the hill side. A curious feature of the scenery further on, was that the hills on our left were covered with fine turf, but otherwise destitute of vegetation, with the exception of some dwarf-shrubs scattered here and there, whereas those immediately opposite these, and to the right of us as we went along, were clothed with the densest vegetation from their bases to their summits, chestnuts and a species of elm being chiefly noticeable. Fortunately for our rate of progression our road skirted the sides of the first named hills, and we were thus enabled to push on at a rapid rate. We saw numbers of horses grazing on the hills all round even in the steepest and most precipitous places, and now and again some of these answering to the call of their owners who had come out to collect them would come bounding down the hill sides uttering shrill neighs and indulging in the wildest of gambols. Our own steeds betrayed an intimate acquaintance with the geography of the neighbourhood which could only have been acquired in this way, and shewed at times an evident inclination to join their friends playing in the vicinity.
Of Odaté as of Hirozaki there is little to be said. Like Hirozaki it also possessed a castle once, and was the residence of a Hatamoto, and like that of Hirozaki the castle is no longer in existence. The town holds about 4,000 inhabitants. The principal products of the district are rice and the indigo plant. Curious looking clay ovens were to be seen along the road side as we came from Hirozaki, in which this plant is subjected to some mysterious process before the dye is extracted. Tea has latterly been grown, but not as yet with much success.
We found on arriving at Odaté, that we should have to continue our journey by boat for 13 ri as far as a place called Tsurugata, as the bridges had been all swept away by recent floods, which floods are of common occurrence,
