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bashi, Sumidagawa, and down Riôgokubashi it ultimately becomes Ôgawa. When I passed the Todagawa in May 1873 I estimated the breadth on the water line to be about 50 metres (165 feet); the velocity of the current being small, so that the discharge must have been small too. But after the rainfall of September and October of last year, I heard that the river had swollen to an enormous degree, and had overflowed its banks, part of the Nakasendô being inundated, and the passage being for some days almost impassable.
From Sakato to Kumagaë the Nakasendô runs along the top of the left embankment of the Aragawa. Between this embankment and the river-bed is an extended piece of arable land, and the river-bed is only seen at a distance. It has here already quite the character of a Japanese upper-river, in which may be seen more gravel and stones than water, and the piers, bank-defences and other river-works are all constructed by means of material extracted from the river, while on the lower parts of the river they consist entirely of wood.
Between F’kaya and Honjô the Nakasendô is sufficiently wide, but there are some steep inclines; here the scenery becomes picturesque and full of variation, exhibiting arable land with farms covered with flowers, the latter even extending to the top of the houses, which were overgrown with a blooming kind of hyacinth; and Buddha-temples calmly situated at a little distance from the road at the end of a neatly paved alley; groves of matsu and bamboo and those magnificent sugi trees, of which often two, three, or even four, grown together at the lower part of their trunks, are the principal features of this part of the road.
Honjô, like Kônosu and F’kaya, is a very large place, but had been burnt down for a great part, a month or so before my arrival. Here is a very prettily situated temple on the top of a hill, from which there is a splendid view over part of the Tonegawa valley, the nearest village on the Tonegawa being Tanakamura, at 1 ri distance. Along the foot of the hill a brook is running, in which
