Japan and the Japanese

RIVERS. 29i
5 In several parts of the country the roads go over hills and
mountains, which are sometimes so steep and high, that travellers
are necessitated to get themselves carried over them in kangos,
such as I have described in the preceding chapter, because they
cannot, without great difficulty and danger, pass them on horseback.
But even this part of the road, which may be called bad in com-
parison toothers, is green and pleasant, for the abundance of springs
of clear water, and green bushes, and this all the year round, but
particularly in the spring, when the flower-bearing trees and shrubs
being then in their full blossom, prove an additional beauty, afibid-
ing to the eye a curious scent.
view, and filling
the nose with agreeable
"
Several of the rivers we are to cross over, chiefly upon Tokai-
do, run with so impetuous a rapidity towards the sea, that they
will bear no bridge nor boat, and this by reason partly of the
neighboring snow-mountains, where they arise, partly of the
frequent great rains, which s\vell them to such a degree as to make
them overflow their banks. These must be forded. Men, horses
and baggage, are delivered up to the care of certain people, bred up
to this business, who are well acquainted with the bed of the river,
and the places which -are the most proper for fording. These
people, as they are made answerable for their passengers' lives, and
all accidents that might befall them in the passage, exert all their
strength, care and dexterity, to support them with their arms against
the impetuosity of the river, and the stones rolling down from the
mountains where the rivers arise. Norimons are carried over by
the same people.
" The chief of these rivers is the formidable Ginyawa, which separates
the two provinces TUTOMI and SURUGA. The passage of
this river is what all travellers are apprehensive of, not only for its
uncommon rapidity and swiftness, but because sometimes, chiefly
after rains, it swells so high, that they are necessitated to stay sev-
eral days on either bank, till the fall of the water makes it passable,
or till they will venture the passage, and desire to be set over at
their own peril. The rivers Fusi-Jedayawa and Abiyawa, in the
last mentioned province, are of the like nature, but not so much
dreaded.
41 There are many other shallow and rapid rivers, but because