89
strong eddies of the current, the view of the hills overhead, shaded as they are by dark pines and cryptomerias, is very grand.
From Suyama close to Tsurugata, where we landed, on to Kado the country is beautiful. Large tracts of rich meadow-land, varied here and there by small bits of lightly wooded country, extend down to the sea on the one hand and as far as the hills on the other. In these meadows wild boars, so our guides said, are frequently to be met with even in the day time. Beyond Kado the country becomes more cultivated; the villages are more numerous and more thickly populated, and the houses composing them differ from those further North in not being mere clay structures but built of wood in the usual style. Near this latter place we saw the ordinary bamboo for the first time, not growing wild but carefully cultivated in a hedgerow along with other trees. Shortly after leaving Kado an extensive lagoon, about 15 miles long by five broad, as far as we could roughly estimate it, and connected with the sea by an arm so narrow that the first impression formed by the traveller of it is that it is an isolated piece of water, comes into view on the right. Near the outlet to the ocean, as if specially stationed there to guard the entrance, are two high bills called respectively Honzan and Shinzan, or old and new mountain, the latter being the name of the higher of the two. As we proceeded further the meadow land gave way entirely to cultivation. The uri or small melon seemed to be the chief production of the district, and those we saw were much larger than those grown near Yedo.
A nice view of Kubota, the capital of the Akita prefecture, is obtained a short distance from the town which is situated in an extensive valley at the foot of Taiheisan, a mountain of some 4,000 feet, and on the river Omogawa. This river has its source at Iwasaki and flows into the sea on the west coast near Kubôta. Kubôta has a population of 60,000 inhabitants, and though, like Hirozaki, an old castle-town, has considerably more life in it than the latter place. The houses though built like those at Hirozaki
