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zag, and shortening the way considerably if made use of, which is only possible to unburdened travellers, who, moreover, do not care for their clothes.
The small temple of Gogén at the highest point of the road, I found to be situated about 4,000 feet above the sea level. Here is the boundary of the three provinces of Echigo, Joshiu and Shinano, and from the fact that those three provinces unite here the mountain derives its name of Mikuni (three countries). The temple is a small wooden building, and always closed; there is only a small hole in the door, through which however nothing is to be seen. A large wooden torii with an ichitoro on each side, is placed before the entrance; on this torii, the Japanese try their fortune in the usual way by attempting to throw small stones on the cross-beam. After all I had heard about the renowned temple on the top of this mountain, I was very much disappointed in seeing this wretched place.
Though the scenery N. of the Mikuni was superb, it cannot be called charming; it was in all too green; excepting a lovely white Japanese lily on the mountain-slopes, no flower was to be discovered; and in this respect I think the Shinshiu-road is to be preferred to the Mikuni road. Perhaps, however, it was the fault of the time of the year, and that in May blooming azaleas and fuji flowers will give to this road an equally, if not more charming aspect than to the Shinshiu-road.
The road now enters the Province of Joshiu; the first resting place is a large but dirty tea-house, at a place called Gogen-no-betto, the road alternately descending and ascending to nearly the same height as the Gogen temple. The scenery is finer here than on the North side of the Mikuni top; many cascades, coming from the mountain slopes on one side, cross the road and full into the deep valleys leading to the Tonegawa.
After Gogen-no-betto the road descends to Nangai; it is broader and shaded by high trees; the mountain slopes are grown with the Kojiwa (a kind of low, knotty oak), with a tree which has some resemblance to a beech, and
