Extracts from Diary in Jajpan. 7l 



cushioned for one person ; it has shafts, between which 

 a man runs ; when two men are employed, the foremost 

 draws by a rope ; two men will run from twenty to 

 thirty miles, the greater part of the distance from eight 

 to ten miles per hour. Yedo and Yokohama are lighted 

 by gas, superintended by a French engineer. Yedo is a 

 fine city, with a magnificent river, and veined with canals 

 — nearly all navigable for large craft. The Harbour Trust 

 of Melbourne might benefit by a trip to Yedo, which would 

 make them less sceptical of the certainty of making a canal 

 from the Gasworks to Hobson's Bay — a paltry 1| miles, 

 whilst in Yedo and other towns of Japan there are hundreds 

 of miles of navigable canals, nearly all opening into the sea, 

 and walled from end to end with masonry. 



The masonry is wonderful as it is beautiful; it is generally 

 of parabolic outline, with a quick curve at the base, and 

 becoming nearly vertical at the top, with an average batter 

 of about 1 in 12. The masonry is all of dry, squared rubble,, 

 coursed ; the walls of the moats round the castles attaining 

 a height of from 50 to 100 ft. Some of the stones in Osaka 

 Castle weigh by measurement 160 tons each. The castle is 

 on a hill, probably between 100 and 200 feet above the sur- 

 rounding country, encircled by swampy rice-fields, four 

 miles across before any quarry is reached; therefore the 

 presence of such enormous stones on an eminence so far 

 away from any quarry is a marvel which no Japanese could 

 explain. The only answer was that the castle had been 

 built about 500 years, and no records kept. 



The temples of Japan are truly superb. The decoration 

 of the interior is lovely and chaste; the intermixture of 

 colours, opposed to each other according to European taste, 

 are so beautifully blended and subdued that the most 

 sublime harmony exists, and there is only one feeling of all 

 visitors — the marvellously lovely and glorious effect. 



The exterior of the temples is majestic and grand, built 

 generally upon round wooden columns of large diameter, 

 stepped into blocks of stone, with immense overhanging 

 roof, heavily tiled, beautifully neat in pattern ; the roof 

 hipped but externally concave in the line of rafter; the 

 overhang, supported by rafter upon rafter protruding in 

 succession, beautifully carved, adding to the massivfe 

 grandeur. There is usually an entrance gateway, roofed 

 with the same massiveness and beauty, with noble gates, 



