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make a continuous line; none however appear to be of any special importance, Kasukabe 10 ri from Tokio being the principal. The plain is fertile and carefully cultivated, producing rice, wheat, barley and vegetables; a few miles beyond Senji however is a little grass land that seems to be waste. The black alder and the weeping willow are common trees, and wood-pigeons are to be seen in great numbers.
Approaching Kurihashi along a causeway or band built to confine the river, one has a magnificent view of the Nikkô mountains. The Tone gawa is crossed by a ferry, and when full is 600 yards across. When the water is low the channel is on the Kurihashi side, leaving the northern half of the bed exposed. In July 1872 in swimming across it from the northern side when it was at its highest, I found three feet of water on the shallowest part in the centre, while the stream was dashing down the deep channel with a swiftness that was almost dangerous.
Crossing the ferry one finds on the northern bank the town of Nakata, and from here the character of the road changes. An almost continuous avenue of Cryptomeria shades it all the way to Utsunomiya. The ground is higher and gradually rises. One sees little rice, but plenty of wheat, barley and vegetables, with large tracts of grass land that would apparently furnish excellent pasturage. A short distance from Nakata is the castle-town of Koga which seems a busy place. The shiro was of great extent, but the work of destruction has been done so thoroughly, that the neglected moats, crossed by bridges dangerously rotten, only shut in a wilderness of rank grass that has obliterated all traces of the daimio’s mansion.
The road all the way from Tôkiô to Utsunomiya is fairly passable for carriages and for a short time a public conveyance plied between the latter place and Nakata. There is generally plenty of width, but along the avenues the road is often hemmed in by high banks, which keep in the water, while the stately trees keep out the sun, so that in wet weather and for long afterwards, travelling,
