A bowshot from the outer moat, westward from the river bank, the town of Tsu, with straggling suburbs, meandered, low and grey, like a long serpent. All Japanese towns are of one colour, walls and roofs alike, of wood unpainted and weatherworn, rendered a shade more silvery by clusters of pale lichen; but Tsu was more monotonously gloomy in aspect than most, by reason of damp and misery. The country close around, with the exception of two low hills, was flat and sedgy, broken by marshes and shallow rivulets. Away, hazy, melting into blue, could be discerned the encircling peaks of the range, beyond which is Ki[^y]oto. Grand mountains these, rugged and austere, with many a beetling crag. Mikuni Yama; Outake San; and away to the south-east Asama Yama, the majestic chief volcano of Japan. The town of Tsu differed from others in that it displayed none of the spick-and-span cleanliness for which the land of the Rising Sun is as conspicuous as European Holland. The outlying cottages bore the stamp of squalor and ague, standing in oozy sludge. So did the people bear the brand of sorrow, as, listless and inert, they dragged their heavy feet. As a poor show of enterprise, a few unripe persimmons, which no one desired to buy, were exposed for sale in the mire; while here and there a tray of sorrel-like leaves were placed to dry (?)--a plant used for dying blue the cotton which is the common garment of the peasant. There was none of the briskness and gaiety to be seen that make rural Japan so cheery. None of the incessant chatter and laughter and pattering of clogs, the rush-and-tumble of naked brown babies, the whirr of the silk-looms, the busy hammer of the carpenters.