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The Nakasendô between Yedo and Takasaki is in a tolerably good condition; I estimate the breadth to vary between 10 and 40 feet; except near Todamura no very steep inclines occur, and without great expense at least this part of it could be easily made a really fine road. The chief difficulty would be as regards some of the villages where the road has in many cases a minimum breadth; but outside the villages it extends through flat arable land, for the greatest part cultivated with corn, rapeseed, beans, etc. (while paddy fields are rare) and it would certainly be no matter of great difficulty to appropriate here and there a strip of these fields along the existing road, and to widen it in this way.

At Todamura the Todagawa is passed by means of ferry boat. The Todagawa is the same river as the Sumidagawa; like many other rivers in Japan, its name is often changed, higher up it is called Arakawa, about 2 ri lower down from the village of Sumida to