Japan and the Japanese

NAGASAKI. 25V
Built along the shore in a narrow valley, formed by the opening of
the neighboring mountains, it is about three quarters of a mile long
and nearly as broad, the chief and broadest street running nearly
that distance up the valley. The mountains which encompass it
are not very high, but steep, green to their tops, and of a very
agreeable aspect. Just behind the city,
in going up the mountains,
are many stately temples, beautifully adorned with fine gardens and
terrace-walks. Higher up are innumerable burying-places. In the
distance appear other high mountains, fruitful and well cultivated.
In short, the whole situation affords to the eye a most delicious and
romantic view." *
The town is open, as are most other towns in Japan, without
either castle, walls or fortifications. Some bastions are built along
the harbor, as it were for defence, but they have no cannon. About
two miles from the town, seaward, just beyond the anchorage, are
two guard-houses, opposite each other, and enclosed by palisades.
They are held each by about seven hundred men, including those
who do duty in the harbor guard-boats.
" Three fresh-water rivers come down from the neighboring
mountains, and run through the town. For the greater part of
the year they have scarce water enough to irrigate some rice-fields
and to drive a few mills, though in rainy weather they are apt to
increase so as to wash away whole houses. They are crossed by
thirty-five bridges, great and small, twenty of stone and fifteen of
wood, very simple in their structure, being made more for strength
than show.
"The city is divided into two parts. Utrimatz (the inner
town) consists of twenty-six Tsju, or streets, all very irregular, as
if built in the infancy of the city ; Sotomatz (or the outer town)
contains sixty-one streets, so that there are eighty-seven in all.
" The streets of Nagasaki and other towns in Japan have borrowed
their name, Tsju, from that of a Japanese measure of sixty fathoms
(three hundred and sixty feet) ; but, though generally short, they
are not all precisely of that length. These streets, or divisions of
streets, seldom containing more than sixty or less than thirty
* This corresponds with Siebold's description, who goes quite into rap
tures at the first a ght he had, in 1825, of the hills about Nagasaki
22*