Five minut-s had scarcely elapsed since the train hai left Mororan when we saw from the railway eiviage a singular sight.
was a decctted village, or rather 6 deserted settlement, consisting of a couple of hundred hous 8, constructed all after the same severe geometrical pattern of planks, and each surroande by about an acre of flat, grassy lund. A Japanese gentleman informed us that this was all hat was left ut an attempt to plant a colony of emigrants from the main island in this ticular spit. I ewald not get any details of the failure or learn whether se scheme was a Government enter-ise or not. It is probable that some capitalist, bought up the tract of Tandon which the cottages stood and tried to settle tenants on iron terms which they, the capitalists, thought reasonable and the settlers exorbitant, especially in view of the fact that their relatives in Honolulu, Brit sh Volumbia, San Frane'sco, and other fore gri parts, probably sent them frequent repor's of the high wages paid to Japanese labourers out there.
Note.—I find I have been mistaken in the above surmise. The settlement was a military one established by the Japanese Government in imitation of the Cossack settlement is Siberia, but it was a failure.
The Scenery of Hokkaido, Even the short railway journey from Mororan to Noboribetsu is, combined with the views of the coast already obtained, sufficient to give one some idea of the scenery of Hokkaido. In my own case, at all events, it was borne in on me as I gazed out of the carriage window that this land was not the same as the Japan Thad known. As may be seen by a glance at the map, the railway runs for a considerable distance along the coast. It runs on a strip of level ground, some of which looks like virgin forest or primeval jungle, and at a short distance from the line, on the landward side, rises a ridge of lofty and charming hills, intensely green, well wooded, and broken ab Srequent, intervals
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.