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Tokyo and Yokohama are ninety miles away behind you and off at your right; the road that stretches out before you leads to Kyoto, the older capital, two hundred and forty miles away at the southwest. There used to be fifty-three regular post-stations along the old road, and each little village, like this one ahead, cultivated some one exclusive trade -- basket-weaving or cord-making or wood-carving or some other special, characteristic handicraft. A railroad built some twenty years ago now connects the two great cities, reducing to a journey of about fourteen hours what used to take nearly fourteen days. This beautiful old post-road is now comparatively little travelled save on local errands from one village to another; but, in the palmy days of Japan's feudal splendor, some of the most picturesque processions and cavalcades in the world used to pass by in the shadow of these pines. Merchants with their servants and pack-horses carrying bales of goods, went back and forth over this road. Lordly daimyos splendidly arrayed in embroidered silks and attended by retainers with glittering swords, came down this very road in awesome state, on their way to pay their dignified respects to the Shōgun at Tokyo. Humbler foot-passengers, too, came and went -- bare-legged fellows with straw sandals like what these fellows wear to protect their feet on the long three-hundred-mile journey. (Coats and tight breeches like these worn by our coolies now are a modern invention, copied from European customs.) There were cottages here then, much the same as those you see now, with heavy thatches of rice-straw and clean bare rooms within. 

This village of Suzukawa has many visitors even in these later days (it is on the railway line, besides), for hereabouts one gets some of the finest views of Fujiyama, the Peerless Mountain.

From Notes of Travel, No. 8, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.

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Wayfarers Resting under Pines on Old Road from Tokyo to Kyoto, Japan.
Chemineaux Reposant sous les Pins dans l'Ancien Chemin de Tokio à Kioto, Japon.
Unter Pinien rastende Reisende auf der alten Straße von Tokio nach Kioto, Japan.
Caminantes Descansando debajo de Pinos en el Viejo Camino de Tokio á Kioto, Japón.
Vandrare hvilande sig under granarne på gamla landsvägen mellan Tokyo och Kyoto, Japan.
Отдыхъ путешественниковъ на дорогѣ изъ Токіо въ Кіото, Японія.