ma--The Nakasendo road--Takasaki--
Difficulty of obtaining quarters for the night--The Baths
at Ikaho--Massage in Japan--Swedish matches--Travelling
in _Kago_--Savavatari--Criminals--Kusatsu--The Hot Springs
and their healing power--Rest at Rokuriga-hara--The summit
of Asamayama--The descent--Journey over Usui-toge--
Japanese actors--Pictures of Japanese folk-life--
Return to Yokohama.

On the 28th September, early in the morning, accompanied by Lieut.
Hovgaard, Herr Bavier, an interpreter, and a Japanese cook skilled
in European cookery, I started on a journey to Asamayama. At first
we travelled in two very rattling and inconvenient carriages, drawn
each by a pair of horses, to the town Takasaki, situated on the
great road "Nakasendo," which passes through the interior of the
country and connects Tokio and Kioto. This road is considered
something grand by the Japanese. In Sweden it would be called an
indifferently kept district road. On this road _jinrikishas_ are met
in thousands, and a great many horses, oxen, and men, _bearing_
heavy burdens, but with the exception of the posting carriages, by
which, for some years back, a regular communication between Tokio
and Takasaki has been kept up, not a single wheeled vehicle drawn by
horses or oxen, and though the road passes through an unbroken
series of populous villages, surrounded by well cultivated rice
fields and small gardens, there is not a single workhorse or work-ox
to be seen. For all the ground in Japan is cultivated by the hand,
and there are few cattle.

Most of the roads in the country consist of foot-paths, so narrow
that two laden horses can pass each other only with difficulty.
Goods are therefore carried, where there is no canal or river, for
the most part by men. The plains are extraordinarily well
cultivated, and we must specially admire the industry with which
water-courses have been cut and the uneven slopes changed into level
terraces.

The post-horses on Nakasendo were so poor and wretched that in
Sweden one would have been liable to punishment for cruelty to
animals for using them. They went, however, at a pretty good speed.
There were places for changing horses at regular distances of
fifteen to twenty kilometres. The driver besides halted often on the
way at some dwelling-house to take a couple of scoopfuls of water
out of the water-vessel standing before it and throw them into the
horses' mouths and between th