226 POPULATION IN JAPAN. Chap. XIV. 
And yet the climate is one of the finest in the 
world ; and the soil fertile and capable of growing 
excellent timber, and of yielding abundant crops 
of grain. 
How can this state of things be accounted for, if 
we believe the statements of Thunberg, Kmmpfer, 
Siebold, and other travellers, that the country is 
densely populated? But the travellers with the 
Dutch embassies from Nagasaki to Yedo rarely left 
the imperial highway on their route, and must 
have received their impressions from what they 
observed as they went along it, and from the 
crowded state of the great towns through which 
they passed. Any one, even now, whose experience 
of Japan was confined to the Tokaido, would come 
to the same conclusion ; but let him leave the 
great highway and penetrate into the country by 
its common roads, and then some doubts would 
probably come across his mind on the subject. 
And if he happens to know anything about agri- 
culture or woodlands, and sees, on every hand, 
thousands of goodly acres, capable of producing 
crops of com or valuable timber, lying waste or 
only covered with brushwood of little value, he 
will at least affirm that there are in that country 
the means of supplying all the necessaries of Kf© 
to a population far greater than that which exists 
in Japan at the present day. 
When we reached the highest land on our 
journey, we left the road and mounted the top of 
an adjoining hill, from which may be obtained one 
