Itinerary of Route from Nikkô to Niigata
(Kinugawa Route.)
From Tôkiyô to
| No. of houses. | Ri. | Chô. | |
| Nikkô | 36 | ||
| Kohiaku | 6 | 2 | 18 |
| Kisagoi | 19 | 1 | 18 |
| Fujihara | 46 | 2 | 19 |
| Takahara | 15 | 2 | 10 |
| Ikari | 25 | 2 | |
| Nakamiyo | 10 | 1 | 24 |
| Yokokawa | 20 | 2 | 21 |
| Itosawa | 38 | 2 | 34 |
| Kayashima | 57 | 1 | 4 |
| Tajima | 250 | 1 | 21 |
| Toyonari | 120 | 2 | 12 |
| Atomi | 34 | 1 | |
| Ouchi | 27 | 2 | 12 |
| Ichikawa | 7 | 2 | 22 |
| Takata | 420 | 2 | 11 |
| Bangé | 910 | 3 | 4 |
| Katakado | 50 | 1 | 20 |
| Nosawa | 306 | 3 | 24 |
| Nojiri | 110 | 1 | 27 |
| Kurumatogé | 3 | 9 | |
| Hozawa | 20 | 1 | 14 |
| Torige | 21 | 1 | |
| Sakaiyama | 28 | 24 | |
| Tsugawa | 615 | 2 | 18 |
| Niigata | 50,000 souls | 18 | |
| Ri. 101 | 6 |
About 247 miles.
LETTER XVI.
Abominable Weather—Insect Pests—Absence of Foreign Trade—A Refractory River—Progress—The Japanese City—Water Highways—Niigata Gardens—Ruth Fyson—The Winter Climate—A Population in Wadding.
Niigata, July 9.
I have spent over a week in Niigata, and leave it regretfully to-morrow, rather for the sake of the friends I have made than for its own interests. I never experienced a week of more abominable weather. The sun has been seen just once, the mountains, which are thirty miles off, not at all. The clouds are a brownish grey, the air moist and motionless, and the mercury has varied from 82° in the day to 80° at night. The household is afflicted with lassitude and loss of appetite. Evening does not bring coolness, but myriads of flying, creeping, jumping, running creatures, all with power to hurt, which replace the day mosquitoes, villains with spotted legs, which bite and poison one without the warning hum. The night mosquitoes are legion. There are no walks except in the streets and the public gardens, for Niigata is built on a sand spit, hot and bare. Neither can you get a view of it without climbing to the top of a wooden look-out.
Niigata is a Treaty Port without foreign trade, and almost without foreign residents. Not a foreign ship visited the port either last year or this. There are only two foreign firms, and these are German, and only eighteen foreigners, of which number, except the missionaries, nearly all are in Government employment. Its river, the Shinano, is the largest in Japan, and it and its affluents bring down a prodigious volume of water. But Japanese rivers are much choked with sand and shingle washed down from the mountains. In all that I have seen, except those which are physically limited by walls of hard rock, a river-bed is a waste of sand, boulders, and shingle, through the middle of which, among sand-banks and shallows, the river proper takes its devious course. In the freshets, which occur to a greater or less extent every year, enormous volumes of water pour over these wastes, carrying sand and detritus down to the mouths, which are all obstructed by bars. Of these rivers the Shinano, being the biggest, is the most refractory, and has piled up a bar at its entrance through which there is only a passage seven feet deep, which is perpetually shallowing. The minds of engineers are much exercised upon the Shinano, and the Government is most anxious to deepen the channel and give Western Japan what it has not—a harbour; but the expense of the necessary operation is enormous, and in the meantime a limited ocean traffic is carried on by junks and by a few small Japanese steamers which call outside. [115a] There is a British Vice-Consulate, but, except as a step, few would accept such a dreary post or outpost.
But Niigata is a handsome, prosperous city of 50,000 inhabitants, the capital of the wealthy province of Echigo, with a population of one and a half millions, and is the seat of the Kenrei, or provincial governor, of the chief law courts, of fine schools, a hospital, and barracks. It is curious to find in such an excluded town a school deserving the designation of a college, as it includes intermediate, primary, and normal schools, an English school with 150 pupils, organised by English and American teachers, an engineering school, a geological museum, splendidly equipped laboratories, and the newest and most approved scientific and educational apparatus. The Government Buildings, which are grouped near Mr. Fyson’s, are of painted white wood, and are imposing from their size and their innumerable glass windows. There is a large hospital [115b] arranged by a European doctor, with a medical school attached, and it, the Kenchô, the Saibanchô, or Court House, the schools, the barracks, and a large bank, which is rivalling them all, have a go-ahead, Europeanised look, bold, staring, and tasteless. There are large public gardens, very well laid out, and with finely gravelled walks. There are 300 street lamps, which burn the mineral oil of the district.