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way to Fukushima one finds four principal channels. From the corner made by the turn of the mountain chain comes towards the east a ridge of inconsiderable height which forms the northern boundary of the plain in which Tôkiô is situated. On its crest, if it deserves the name, is the town of Utsunomiya 28 ri from Tôki. The Ôshiu kaidô traverses the plain as far as Utsunomiya, and then continues towards the north, parallel to and at a short distance from the eastern base of the principal chain of mountains.
The country between Tôkiô and Utsunomiya is drained principally by the Sumita gawa and the Tone gawa; by the former and one branch of the latter into the Bay of Yedo, and by its remaining branch into the Pacific.
Only 3 ri beyond Utsunomiya is the Kinu gawa, which, pent up for many miles inside the principal range of mountains, breaks through them at the turn, and though checked by the ridge already mentioned, soon rounds it and continues a southerly course for some miles further before uniting with the Tone gawa and striking east to the Pacific, which is reached at Chôshi. In the latter part of its course it receives several affluents.
Proceeding towards the north the next eastern spur shutting in the Kinu gawa is only five ri further. The hill, between the towns of Ujiye and Kitsuregawa, by which the Ôshiu kaidô climbs over it is called Yagorô Saka. Past Kitsuregawa flows a river of the same name almost due east to the Pacific. It unites with four streams, that separated each by a short spur of hills come from the central mountains, to form the Naka gawa, which thus carries off all the water between Yagorô Saka and the mass of hills called Ni-ju-san Saka between Koyebori and Ashino.
North of these twenty-three hills and taking its rise in the mountains at the south of Aidzu is the Abukuma gawa, which crosses the Ôsbhu kaidô at the large castle-town of Shirakawa, 50 ri from Tôkiô, and then turning towards the north only reaches the Pacific at Arahama in the Bay of Sendai. In its northern course its principal
