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tween Ashino and Shirasaka is the boundary separating the provinces of Shimotzuke and Ôshiu.
More hills, and a long stretch of magnificent moorland bring the traveller to Shirakawa, a fine large castle-town with an air of prosperity about it, such as one sees at Utsunomiya, Sukagawa, Koriyama, Nihon matsu and Fukushima. The honjin has been converted into a hospital, and a conspicuous object in the principal street is the telegraph office. In the castle is a small temple dedicated to Jimmu Tennô. Shirakawa was the seat of a daimiô of 110,000 koku, and played a prominent part in the civil war. It was occupied by each of the contending parties, and appears to have been exceedingly lucky in having only slightly suffered from fire. Leaving the town one crosses the Abukuma zawa, and a short distance beyond, on a hillside sloping to the road, is a burial-ground of the southern men who fell in the war. The tombstones and inscriptions are kept in good order, and many a traveller alights from pack-horse kago or jinrikisha to pause and pay a tribute of respect to the memory of the gallant dead. Round this same hill winds to the left the road to Wakamatsu.
Between Shirakawa and Yabuki the country is mostly moorland. Yabuki was a large town totally burnt in the war and only partially rebuilt. From here to Sukagawa the road is very beautiful, through woods and over undulating grassland.
Sukagawa on the banks of the Shakado gawa is one of the richest and best kept towns on the road. After the conversion of han into ken it became the seat of the Shichojo or branch agency of the Fukushima ken, but this has recently been abolished. It has a hospital built in foreign style, attended by Japanese doctors who have studied in Tôkiô. Numbers of mulberry trees are to be seen in the neighbourhood, and the practice is adopted here of cutting the trunk short off just above the ground and keeping the shoots tightly tied together. The stage to Koriyama is the longest on the journey 3 ri 9 chô. There are three or four villages, and one stone quarry on
