I left for Hiraizumi on the twelfth. I wanted to see the pine tree of Aneha and the bridge of Odae on my way. So I followed a lonely mountain trail trodden only by hunters and woodcutters, but somehow I lost my way and came to the port of Ishinomaki. The port is located in a spacious bay, across which lay the island of Kinkazan, an old goldmine once celebrated as 'blooming with flowers of gold. There were hundreds of ships, large and small, anchored in the harbor, and countless streaks of smoke continually rising from the houses that thronged the shore. I was pleased to see this busy place, though it was mere chance that had brought me here, and began to look for a suitable place to stay. Strangely enough however, no one offered me hospitality. After much inquiring, I found a miserable house, and, spending an uneasy night, I wandered out again on the following morning on a road that was totally unknown to me. Looking across to the ford of Sode, the meadow of Obuchi and the pampas- moor of Mano, I pushed along the road that formed the embankment of a river. Sleeping overnight at Toima, where the long, swampish river came to an end at last, I arrived at Hiraizumi after wandering some twenty miles in two days.
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