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Chapter 13 Return from Edo Departure from Edo 369 On April 5th early in the morning at eight o’clock we finally left this very large and populous city after traveling for two hours. The city’s last three crossroads and the last river ran toward the sea, roughly four hundred paces away. Noteworthy in this city is the famous bridge Nihonbashi, which means Japanese bridge, forty-two mats long. In the countryside the farmers were hoeing the rice fields up to their knees in mud and water. In many villages tall bamboo signboards had been erected announcing that people were not permitted to use the inns because some territorial lords were expected. Shinagawa Today there were no human bones at the place of a skull1 at Shinagawa, but some one and a half miles from our overnight stop we discovered a human head at the side of the road and many sick pilgrims on the way to or from Ise. We had our noon meal at Kawasaki and later, just before evening, arrived at our inn at Totsuka in dark weather and a fine drizzle. This area is fertile but somewhat hilly with a long, low mountain range toward the sea. April 6th. We left our inn one hour after sunrise in damp weather and the whole day ran into the advance party and luggage of the territorial lord of Ki no Kuni. All the luggage was marked with the shogunal crest in gold. We met the main party at twelve o’clock noon before Ōiso. It consisted of twenty men marching behind each other with covered guns, the same number carrying large bows and arrows, and perhaps as many again with long wooden poles; among the latter marched a few with lacquered cases of firearms and swords and a variety of pikes. Then followed four horses, the last of which carried a black chair placed on a black seat with two large pike-tufts at the back and three or four black and white feather standards at the side, in front, and behind, as well as other pikes and men on horses. Soon afterward came twelve forerunners and the lord’s norimono . We stopped at a distance of twenty paces, dismounted from our horses, bared our heads, and when he was slowly carried past us had our interpreter convey a brief message of good wishes. He in turn replied with mild gestures and good wishes for our own journey. He looked some thirty years old, had a brownish, narrow face and similar figure and a serious, yet friendly mien. After him came a number of men on horseback with pikes and some servants and then his magistrate with other people, all in turn accompanied by servants carrying pikes and other followers so that there were nearly one thousand men on foot. They somehow seemed to be crouching together and marched in total silence. This gentleman is of shogunal descent and his son at Edo is promised in marriage to the eleven-year-old daughter of His Majesty.2 We arrived at our inn at five o’clock in the evening, trailing a large convoy of ill-mannered boys, shouting and running after us rowdily and maliciously. On April 7th we were carried in kago from our inn to Hakone, where we had lunch and were told that close by there was the place where Gongen Kami was defeated. After our noon meal we continued to Mishima, where we arrived one hour before sunset and entered an inn for the night’s lodging. There used to be a famous temple here standing on a big, spacious square, well paved with large square stones and next to a pond with very tame fish. Descending the mountains, we noticed that the land ran in a westsouthwesterly direction twelve miles toward the sea. Not far from Mishima were a large number of young yamabushi boys, as well as young women who accosted us with their songs, the former importunate, the latter a little more bashful. On April 8th we left our inn three hours before sunrise. The reason for this early departure was to avoid the lord of Owari, who is married to the shogun’s sister and who was lodging at the village of Numazu, one and a half hours’ distance from us. All the same, the road was full with his men, horses, luggage, and norimono as well as his house stewards and chancellors, all moving in complete silence...

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