Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/418

406 the larger cities profit by the railways, and though the empire as a whole profits, their approach has sounded the death-knell of the smaller country towns. In old walking and jinrikisha days, every little town and village along the chief highways was bustling and prosperous. Now their shops are empty, their merry inns deserted; for their former customers are whirled past them without stopping.

We have alluded to the trouble caused by the capricious nature of Japanese rivers. Japan is perhaps the only country in the world where a railway may be obliged to go under a river instead of over it. In the district between Kōbe and Ōsaka and also near Lake Biwa, almost all the rivers tend to raise their beds above the level of the surrounding fields, owing to the masses of sand and pebbles continually carried down by their rapid current. The river-bed thus stands athwart the flat strip of country between the mountain and the sea as a sort of wall or dyke, and the only thing to do is to take the line underneath it by a tunnel, when the wall is of sufficient height to give headway for the train. Every now and then one of these river-banks bursts, the whole country-side is flooded, and the railway department of course put to heavy expense. Apart from such exceptional cases, the recurrence of torrential rains, typhoons, and earthquakes causes havoc which almost every year throws the system into temporary disorder.

The Japanese railways are narrow gauge,—three feet six inches. The rates are extremely low. One may travel first class in Japan more cheaply than third class in an English parliamentary train. Nevertheless the percentage of first and even second-class passengers is small, the two together only forming seven per cent of the entire number carried. The check system for luggage is in force. Sleeping and dining-cars (European food) have recently been introduced on some of the longer lines. On the others—in the absence of refreshment-rooms—neat little boxes of native food, and drinks of various kinds, are hawked about at the principal stations.