Fukagawa, one of the busiest and most crowded parts of Tokio, possesses a fine garden, constructed within recent years with all the taste and skill that wealth can command. As in the case of nearly all important grounds, especially those laid out as this is near a river or canal, the controlling feature of the design is a large and irregular lake. Plate XXIII. illustrates what is intended as the principal or central view of the garden from a point immediately in front of the main Japanese residence. In the background is a high garden hill, somewhat conical in form but with an irregular summit, near the base of which the semblance of a stream is produced by a winding bed of broken stones tending to a group of precipitous rocks which indicate the position of a supposed cascade. Here may be recognized the "Guardian Stone," "Cliff Stone," and other essential rocks which always distinguish a garden waterfall. The hill and artificial stream may be taken to express the idea of Mount Fuji and the Fuji-kawa, though the representation is remarkable for great freedom of treatment. In the foreground, on the right, is discovered the beach of one of the peninsulas of the lake, with a magnificent granite lantern, fine scoriated rocks, and a characteristic example of the leaning pine-trees which the gardeners of the country train over the water, and with which these grounds are crowded. The whole perimeter of the lake is ornamented with stones and rocks of great rarity and variety. Plate XXIV. presents another vista of the lake at a point where two of its wooded islets nearly meet, leaving a connecting sand-bank planted with water reeds and rushes. Beyond this beach may be seen a peep of the head of the lake, with the distant Fuji-san and cascade-mouth. This is by far the most picturesque view of the garden, though the effect is said to have been to some extent accidentally produced. In this illustration may be seen a number of the carefully selected rocks which have been collected from various parts of the country.
