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 Takada is the first place which is reached in Echigo; this extensive town is situated on the left bank of the Sekigawa, a little way down from the month of the Asakusa, which was crossed from its right to its left bank by a wooden bridge. This Aragawa is about 100 feet wide; there was a rapid stream running and the river was impracticable for navigation. Takada consists properly of one street, which bends itself repeatedly at right angles while between two bendings a straight part stretches as it were to the horizon. All the houses are equally low and built in the same manner, with a verandah or covered way supported by wooden columns, placed at nearly equal distances from each other. The upper story of the houses projects in many cases over the ground-floor till in a plane with the columns. These verandahs serve to keep a free passage during the winter, when the street is sometimes buried under 5 or 6 feet of snow. But they give a very monotonous appearance to the dull and silent town. They told me here the place contains 5,000 houses. The principal business of the people is cotton-weaving, and the town abounds with drapers’ shops.

Between Nagano and Takada no bamboo is to be seen; at Takada there is a very small kind, which seems to be the case throughout Echigo. On this part of the road, too, all pack-horses we saw were mares, which is certainly aa exception to the general rule; bulls were also much used for transport purposes.

At Takada the road passes to the right bank of the Sekigawa; the river was much swollen by the rainfall of the previous day; a right tributary of the Sekigawa is crossed at Kasugasinden, and about 1 ri downward the Sekigawa flows into the Japan Sea near Imamatshi. Kasugasinden was reached by jinrickshajinrikisha [sic], the road between Takada and Kasugasinden being tolerably good. To the left there are large paddy-fields; to the right the way is bordered by farms, separated from the road by high hedges and broad ditches,. [sic] From the latter the water is carried off at several places across the road, to irrigate the rice fields; and as only a plank or the trunk of a tree