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300 Chapter 8 Voyage from Kokura to Osaka, Begun on February 17, 1691, Amounting to 140 or 150 Miles After we spent one and a half hours at the inn refreshing and repleting ourselves with Japanese food, we again left Kokura under the escort of the two above-mentioned nobles from the local court, who marched at the head of our procession. We arrived at the shore and came to two chabune,1 or small freight vessels, to take us across to Shimonoseki. We discovered that both the large bridge and the wide square in front of our inn were filled with a swarm of spectators, more than a thousand commoners, who knelt down in complete silence on both sides of our procession. Nobody had the courage (perhaps because they were frightened of our leader, or out of respect for him) to get up or make any noise. Thus we left the city of Kokura and at the same time the island of Kyushu, or nishi no kuni (as it is called by the common people), which means nine countries or nine provinces or domains.2 It is also called saikoku, which means “western country.” Half an hour before sunset we embarked on the two vessels and traveled three miles by sea to our large barge at Shimonoseki; this had arrived five days previously and was to take us on the remaining voyage by sea to Osaka. The small vessel on which I had embarked took five hours and arrived two hours after the other. It went off course and ran aground a number of times, and consequently we arrived late at night. We settled down for the night on our barge, where everybody was assigned his meager space. On the journey from Kokura to Shimonoseki, through a strait between the island of Hikoshima and the province of Buzen, a number of places famous for certain historic events were pointed out to us. On the right, in the territory of Kokura and on the shore of Buzen, there was a green, big, flat plain with trees called Tamashima, which means pearl island. There is a settlement where in ancient times the dairi, or spiritual hereditary emperor, had his residence and which therefore still carries the name of Dairi. Between there and the island of Hikoshima a gravestone3 or memorial stone called Yojibei is poised on a cliff rising from the deep sea in honor and memory of a certain mariner of that name. When the ruler Taikō went to restore order and loyalty, which at present reign among the westerners ,4 the mariner endangered the ruler’s life at these cliffs and forestalled his just punishment by cutting his stomach; he was given this memorial in his honor. The location is also famous for the loss of an imperial heir at the time of the wars of the dairi. The courageous emperor and war hero Heike5 had spent many years in bloody wars but finally suffered the misfortune of being chased by his enemy from his residence at Osaka to Hyōgo; he also had to flee these fortifications and then died. The nursemaid of the seven-yearold son he left behind attempted to flee across the sea with him, but when she reached this place and could not shake off the enemy, she grasped the prince who had been entrusted to her, and showing a degree of purpose and determination that is considered courageous and heroic by the Japanese, she threw herself into these tumultuous seas together with the boy. When Heike became aware of his approaching end, he allegedly sent ten ships with silver and gold to China, where a temple has been built in his memory . A similar temple has been built here at Shimonoseki for the prince who drowned. This temple is called Amidaji,6 and we plan to visit it tomorrow. Chapter 8: Voyage from Kokura to Osaka 301 Shimonoseki Shimonoseki is situated at a famous seaport at the foot of a mountain range in the province of Nagato, the westernmost province of the mainland or the large island of Nippon . Because the island of Kyushu is close, the sea is channeled through a strait one Japanese mile wide. This island of Nippon is the largest of the Japanese empire and is shaped like a jawbone. It is divided into fifty-two districts and two large highways, of which the most important is the one from Shimonoseki via Osaka and Miyako along the southern shore...

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