Connecticut western news., 1889-12-04
AN AVENUE OF CEDARS.
THE WONDERFUL ROADWAY
 FROM TOXIC TO NIKkO.
Forty Miles of Magnificent Trees, I'm posing in their Grandeur.

The Japanese, when they entombed, at Nikko, Iyeyasu, one of their great est statemen and heroes, the founder of Tokugawa dynasty of military rulers whose powers came to an end only with the revolution of 1868, af- ter lasting three centuries-planted better than they knew when they built an almost straight road from Tokio to the sacred ground at Nikko, lined the greater distance on either hand with pines and cedars, whose fragrant breath and giant tops perfume and shadow the path. Since then 300 years have come and gone, adding year by year ring growths, till now these forest giants guard the way, ma ture and vigorous, as if age only added to their strength. This avenue of ce- dar reaches almost forty miles of the way from Tokio to Nikko. have seen avenues of oaks from Windsor and Buckingham maybe two miles or over long; but think of it! a road way graded level, about twenty feet wide, curbed at both sides, with liv- ing water running, and with steeply- sloping banks from six to twelve feet high, and upon these in all endless procession the great cedars of Japan. I wonder if the world elsewhere can match it.
 The cedars vary in diameter from two feet to six feet. The bark is red dish, thin and close set in rather nar- row parallel strips. The trunks are straight and uniformly round, reach ing fifty to seventy-five feet in night before branching much, and reaching an altitude of 130 to 18O feet. The branches are not large in proportion to the trunks, so that trees stand close together, interlacing their shade.
 We entered this avenue from the railway station, Utsu-no-miya, at about o'clock ill the afternoon, hav- ing arranged for jin-rikishas and extra men to pull us all the way to Nikko, expecting to reach there before dark, but it was nine Japanese ri, equal to about twenty-three English miles, and a moderate upgrade all the way, and it was g o'clock at night before we reached Nikko.
 Solemn and imposing indeed was the shadowed way during the after noon i,eurs and short twilight, but doubly solemn as night settled down and nothing could be distinguished. The jin-riki-shamen seemed to feel their way with their feet; paper lan- tern with tallow candle lighted the space that firefy would. The banks of the roadway were quite above our heads, but one after another we could see the great trunks of the cedars lead ing up till lost in the upper darkness. Every now and then the sriky" men would startle us by s.Ha," then "Sh," "Sorya," the expression of warning, and then some gray ghost of belated traveller would glide by. Then we would see glimmering lanterns ahead and long stretches of pack-horses load ed with charcoal, baled rice and bam- boo poles would go noisily by. There was no wind, no insect sounds. At intervals of two or three miles we would come to large village built on ] either side of the road, at which point the avenue of cedars ceases, only to commence solidly and uninterruptedly again at the end of the village street.
 At Nikko the avenue practically ends, and there the largest and oldest of the cedars group themselves in for est-like masses around the great Sho- guns tomb
 A JAPANESE FUNERAL.
 The eldest daughter of Otani Kahci a rich rice merchant of Yokohama, died four days ago, 15 years of age, and to-day witnessed the funeral pro- cession as it passed along one of the main streets of the city. It was nearly a mile in length and contained proba- bly thousand persons, including mourners, friends, priests and flower bearers. First came six great bou- quets or stands of flowers arranged in a conical form, each about eight feet high, two feet in diameter at the bot tom, tapering to the top. These con- sisted of alternate circles of flowers and evergreens, and were strikingly effective in character. The stem or handle of each was a green bamboo about five inches in diameter fixed at the bottom in a somewhat ornamental wooden base. They were carried braced to shoulder poles by eoolies, with relays of men to relieve them oc- casionally.
 Following these were six stands of artificial flowers, gilded and silvered :; after these the young female relatives and friends of the dead girl, richly dressed, each in a jin-riki-sha. Then came no less than fifty-two enormous stands of flowers and evergreens-such as first described-borne in pairs, fol lowed by large number of tsukuri- bana (artificial flowersl. Then came