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Takada is the first place which is reached in Echigo; this extensive town is situated on the left bank of the Sekigawa, a little way down from the month of the Asakusa, which was crossed from its right to its left bank by a wooden bridge. This Aragawa is about 100 feet wide; there was a rapid stream running and the river was impracticable for navigation. Takada consists properly of one street, which bends itself repeatedly at right angles while between two bendings a straight part stretches as it were to the horizon. All the houses are equally low and built in the same manner, with a verandah or covered way supported by wooden columns, placed at nearly equal distances from each other. The upper story of the houses projects in many cases over the ground-floor till in a plane with the columns. These verandahs serve to keep a free passage during the winter, when the street is sometimes buried under 5 or 6 feet of snow. But they give a very monotonous appearance to the dull and silent town. They told me here the place contains 5,000 houses. The principal business of the people is cotton-weaving, and the town abounds with drapers’ shops.
Between Nagano and Takada no bamboo is to be seen; at Takada there is a very small kind, which seems to be the case throughout Echigo. On this part of the road, too, all pack-horses we saw were mares, which is certainly aa exception to the general rule; bulls were also much used for transport purposes.
At Takada the road passes to the right bank of the Sekigawa; the river was much swollen by the rainfall of the previous day; a right tributary of the Sekigawa is crossed at Kasugasinden, and about 1 ri downward the Sekigawa flows into the Japan Sea near Imamatshi. Kasugasinden was reached by jinricksha, the road between Takada and Kasugasinden being tolerably good. To the left there are large paddy-fields; to the right the way is bordered by farms, separated from the road by high hedges and broad ditches, From the latter the water is carried off at several places across the road, to irrigate the rice fields; and as only a plank or the trunk of a tree
