Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/195

 ders of coolies, being subjected in either case to strict official supervision. Injunctions to keep the roads in repair were constantly issued to the people living near them; but as no official aid was given, the farmers naturally avoided expenditure and confined themselves to essentially superficial methods. Credit belongs to the Tokugawa, however, for organising a regular transport service between Yedo and Kyōtō. From the very commencement of the seventeenth century a scale of charges for coolies and pack-horses was fixed by law,—one penny farthing, approximately, per ri (two and a half miles) for a pack-horse carrying a load of three hundred and seventy-five pounds, and one-half of that remuneration for the driver; and the same sum ($1 1/4$ d. per ri) for a transport coolie. Stringent measures were adopted against overcharging. Any attempt of that nature exposed a coolie to fifty days' imprisonment, the headman of his village to a fine of thirty shillings, and every inhabitant of his ward to a fine of sevenpence. On the main roads converging to Yedo—the Tokaidō, which lay along the eastern seacoast; the Nakasendō, which passed through the mountainous interior; the Kōshiu-kaidō, which communicated with Kōfu; and the Oshiu-kaidō, leading northward—traffic became very heavy in consequence of the frequent passing of feudal chiefs and their great retinues to and from Yedo. By these nobles the horses and coolies along the route were requisitioned in