I. Japan's Geography

1. NOTES OF A JOURNEY FROM AWOMORI TO NIIGATA , AND A OF VISIT TO BY J. H. GUBBINS , ESQ.

   Read before the Asiatic Society of Japan on the The Bay of Awomori, at the extreme end of which stands the town of the same name , is among the best in Japan, the harbour being well protected while there is deep water close to the shore on all sides .

 J. H. GUBBINS, Esq.

Bead before the Asiatic Society of Japan on the 14th April 1875.

  The Bay of Awomori, at the extreme end of which stands the town of the same name, is among the hest in Japan, the harbour being well protected while there is

deep water close to the shore on all sides.

   The town of Awomori, which is the seat of the Awomori Ken, is extremely uninteresting, and there was comparatively little left to see of it on the occasion of our visit,

as more than half of the place had been destroyed by fire the year before. Its Meibutsu or production for which it is famous, is a kind of sweetmeat made of beans and sugar.

   No particular industry is carried on, but a considerable trade passes through the town, as it is the favourite place of communication between this part of the country and

Hakodate, owing to its proximity to Ilirozaki which was formerly the castle-town of the district ; while on the other hand it is conveniently situated with respect to the great

cattle-province of Nambu. Cattle and rice arc the chief exports to Hakodate, while from that place skins, fish, and foreign merchandise of all kinds are imported. Another

thing which tends to give a certain importance to Awomori is the fact of its being the prineipal outlet, so to speak, of the large yearly emigration of the country

people who flock in large numbers in the spring of every year to Hakodate—either to join the fisheries on the coast of Yesso, or to pick up what living they can in Hakodate

and its neighbourhood, returning as regularly in the antumn to their native places.

   Cousidering the comparatively short period during which ont-door work can be carried on in the northern parts of Japan, it seems strange that these people should

choose for their periodical flitting the very time of year when, as one would be apt to think, their labour would pay them best ; and the reason assigned—which the fact

of the yearly emigration itself proves to be in a measure correct—namely, — that the fisheries are so lucrative that the amount which they earn by this livelihood serves not

only to keep them through the winter months, bnt to defray the cost of their journeys to and fro—leads us to infer that agriculture in these northern districts of the

country is not a remunerative pursuit. This emigration is not confined to the male portion of the population ; the women emigrate in just as large if not in larger numbers

than the men.

   At Awomori commences the long chain of hills which ruus down intersecting the country from north to sonth as far as Takasaki and on through Shiushin. A lesser

ridge of hills has a direction from north-east to sonth-west, bnt is irregular, there being breaks at intervals and some of the peaks being much higher than others. In this

last chain is the mountain Iwakiyama, which like so many other mountaius in Japan is shaped like a volcano, and stands ont a little distance from the rest of the chain. It

is of course impossible to form any accurate conclusion as to the height of a mountain withont ascending it, bnt jndging from the size of the hills near Iwakiyama over

which we passed we estimated its height roughly at abont 5,000 feet.

   Proceeding from Awamori towards Namioka, the first post stage on the road to Hirozaki, one passes over the last-mentioned ridge of hills at a point called the Tsugaruzaka

the ascent of which is somewhat tedious, though there is a nice view to be had when the top is reached, of Iwakiyama and of the valley in which Hirozaki lies. In the district between Awomori and the Tsugaruzaka the chief product is of course rice, bnt the cultivation is altogether very scanty. Some of the hills were covered with a coarse-looking medinm-sized bush which, seen from a distance bears a certain resemblance to the mulberryplant, though the leaf is larger. The name given by the Japanese to the plant is Oomagiri, and the bark is em ployed to make the inceuse-sticks in common use in Japan ese temples. The Sasa or scrub-bamboo, dwarf-oak, and ordinary pine grow everywhere in great profusion. On

the other side of the Tsugaruzaka the country opeus ont into a broad valley in which the villages of Namioka, Fujizaki, and the town of Hirozaki are situated, and which

is bonnded by the two ranges of hills already mentioned.

   The scenery loses much of its desolatenoss, the broad valley full of rice presenting a cheerful contrast to the country already passed through. The valley is watered by the

Hiragawa which flows through it from North-East and Sonth-West, and is crossed by the road some two miles from Namioka. The river when wo saw it was only abont thirty yards wide, bnt in flood it attaius a cousiderable breadth. The houses in the villages along the road are almost all built of clay with slight wooden frames, bnt the better class of buildings in the villages and the houses in the towus are ordinary wooden structures, presenting in point of architecture no marked difference to those seen in Yedo and its envirous. I should

not forget to mentiou the water-melous, which one sees everywhere growing in the wildest profusion, sometimes trailing up the sides of the houses and almost hiding the roofs altogether from view with their rich luxuriance of foliage, and at other times forming the hedge-row to a garden. All the way from Awomori to Niigata water-melous are grown, and as they are also found in great quantities down sonth, this plant may be said to be.