arly days of the country's
history, when all about were impenetrable thickets and pathless woods.
Until the revolution of 1868, when all these old feudal customs were
ruthlessly swept away, the Tokaido here was obstructed with one of the
"barriers," past which nobody might go without a passport. These barriers
were established on the boundaries of feudal territories, usually at
points where the traveller had no alternate route to choose.

A magnificent avenue of cryptomeria shades the Tokaido for a short
distance out of Hakone village; on the left is passed a large government
sanitarium, one of those splendid modern-looking structures that speak so
eloquently of the present Mikado's progressive and enlightened policy.
The road then turns up the steep mountain-slopes, fringed with
impenetrable thickets of bamboo. Fuji, from here, presents a grand and
curious sight. The wind has risen, and the summit of the cone is almost
hidden behind clouds of drifting snow, which at a distance might almost
be mistaken for a steamy eruption of the volcano. Close by, too, the
spirit of the wind moves through the bamboo-brakes, rubbing the myriad
frost-dried flags together and causing a peculiar rustling noise--the
whispering of the spirits of the mountains.

The summit reached, the Tokaido now leads through glorious pine-woods,
descending toward the valley of the Sakawagawa by a series of breakneck
zigzags. The region is picturesque in the extreme; a small
mountain-stream tumbles along through a deep ravine on the left,
mountains tower aloft on the other side, and here and there give birth to
a cataract that tumbles and splashes down from a height of several
hundred feet.

By 1 p.m. Yomoto and the recommencement of the jinrikisha road is
reached; a broiled fish and a bottle of native beer are consumed for
lunch, and the kago coolies dismissed. The road from Yomoto is a gradual
descent, for four miles, to Odawara, a town of some thirteen thousand
inhabitants, on the coast. The road now becomes level and broader than
heretofore; vehicles drawn by horses mingle with the swarms of
jinrikishas and pedestrians. Both horses and drivers of the former seem
sleepy, woe-begone and careless, as though overcome with a consciousness
of being out of place.

Gangs of men are dragging stout hand-carts, loaded with material for the
construction of the Tokaido railway, now rapidly being pushed forward.
Every mile of the road is swarming with life--the