employed it in journeys of over 1200 miles, and always found it
efficient and reliable.] I intend to make use of it always, much
against Ito's wishes, who reckoned on many a prospective "squeeze"
in dealings with the farmers.

My journey will now be entirely over "unbeaten tracks," and will
lead through what may be called "Old Japan;" and as it will be
natural to use Japanese words for money and distances, for which
there are no English terms, I give them here. A yen is a note
representing a dollar, or about 3s. 7d. of our money; a sen is
something less than a halfpenny; a rin is a thin round coin of iron
or bronze, with a square hole in the middle, of which 10 make a
sen, and 1000 a yen; and a tempo is a handsome oval bronze coin
with a hole in the centre, of which 5 make 4 sen. Distances are
measured by ri, cho, and ken. Six feet make one ken, sixty ken one
cho, and thirty-six cho one ri, or nearly 2.5 English miles. When
I write of a road I mean a bridle-path from four to eight feet
wide, kuruma roads being specified as such. I. L. B.



LETTER XI



Comfort disappears--Fine Scenery--An Alarm--A Farm-house--An
unusual Costume--Bridling a Horse--Female Dress and Ugliness--
Babies--My Mago--Beauties of the Kinugawa--Fujihara--My Servant--
Horse-shoes--An absurd Mistake.