The mountain, Fuji, was now in sight, and presently the mountainous tract of Hakone was entered, separating the bays of Tōtōmi and Yedo. It took a day to cross these mountains, which were covered with bushes and forest trees, and were the only hills in Japan, except those close to Nagasaki, which Thunberg was permitted freely to wander over and examine. “This day,” he says, “I was seldom in my norimono; but in the same degree as I eased my bearers of their burden, I rendered the journey troublesome to the interpreters, and more particularly to the inferior officers, who, by rotation, were to follow my steps. I was not allowed, indeed, to go far out of the road, but having been previously used to run up rocks in the African mountains, I frequently got to a considerable distance before my anxious and panting followers, and thereby gained time to gather a great many of the most curious and scarcest plants, which had just begun to flower, and which I put in my handkerchief.” Among the trees growing in this tract was the _Thuya dolebrata_, planted everywhere by the road-side, tall, straight, and with leaves of silver-white on their under sides,—in Thunberg’s opinion the handsomest of the fir tribe. There were no less than six peculiar species of maple, all of great beauty. Cedars (_Cupressus japonica_), a common tree throughout the country, grew here in great perfection. The straightest and tallest of the firs, their trunks ran up straight as a candle, and, being both light and very durable, the timber was employed for all sorts of constructions, and also for cabinet work, the veins showing to advantage when covered with varnish. The wood of this tree, next to the _Pinus silvestris_, is that most employed by carpenters, etc. He also observed several species of oaks,[52] the common barberry, in full blossom, several species of the _Vaccinia_, or whortleberry, a wild pear-tree, a shrub with leaves so rough that they are used for polishing by the joiners, the _Oryris japonica_, bearing its flowers at the middle of its leaves; also, several beautiful flowering shrubs, _Viburna_, with double as well as single flowers, two species of _Spirea_, the _Citrus tripoliata_, and the _Gardenia Florida_, of which the seed-vessels afforded a yellow dye. The dragon lily (_Arum dracontium_), and the edible species of the same plant (_Arum esculentum_), the eddo, or tania, of the West Indies, and taro, of the Sandwich Islands (_Caladium_ in more recent classifications), were cultivated in some spots.