A Kitchen, showing Utensils
A Fishmonger;
The Marketing and Preparation of Food
Our travellers kept on this day and the next (Sunday, March 11) through the mountainous country of Hakone, which runs out southward from the broad peninsula of Izu. At a village, hemmed in between a lake and a mountain, the lake itself surrounded in every other direction by mountains not to be climbed, was a narrow pass—another imperial searching-place, where all persons travelling to, and especially from, Yedo must submit to a rigorous examination. Upon the shore of this lake were five small wooden chapels, and in each a priest seated, beating a gong and howling a namida [abbreviation of Namamidabutsu]. “All the Japanese foot-travellers of our retinue,” says Kämpfer, “threw them some kasses into the chapel, and in return received each a paper, which they carried, bareheaded, with great respect, to the shore, in order to throw it into the lake, having first tied a stone to it, that it might be sure to go to the bottom, which they believe is the purgatory for children who die before seven years of age. They are told so by their priests, who, for their comfort, assure them that as soon as the water washes off the names and characters of the gods and saints, written upon the papers above mentioned, the children at the bottom feel great relief, if they do not obtain a full and effectual redemption.” This lake has but one outlet, falling over the mountains in a cataract, and running down through a craggy and precipitous valley, along which the road is carried on a very steep descent to the mouth of the river in the bay of Yedo. Here, on a plain four miles in width, was found the town of Odawara, containing about a thousand small houses, very neatly built, and evidently inhabited by a better class of people; but the empty shops evinced no great activity of trade or manufactures. The castle and residence of the prince, as well as the temples, were on the north side, in the ascent of the mountains.
The next day (Monday, March 12), the road following the northwest shore of the outer bay of Yedo crossed several very rapid streams, till at length the mountains on their left disappeared, and a broad plain spread out extending to Yedo. Off the shore was seen the island of Kamakura,[23] with high and rugged shores, but of which the surface was flat and wooded. It was not above four miles in circumference, and was used, like several other islands, as a place of confinement for disgraced noblemen. There being no landing-place, the boats that bring prisoners or provisions must be hauled up and let down by a crane. After a time the road left the shore, crossing a promontory which separates the outer from the inner bay of Yedo; but by sunset the shore of the inner bay was struck.
The country now became exceedingly fruitful and populous, and almost a continued row of towns and villages. In one of these villages there lived in a monastery an old gray monk, fourscore years of age, and a native of Nagasaki. “He had spent,” says Kämpfer, “the greatest part of his life in holy pilgrimages, running up and down the country, and visiting almost all the temples of the Japanese empire. The superstitious vulgar had got such a high notion of his holiness, that even in his lifetime they canonized and reverenced him as a great saint, to the extent of worshipping his statue, which he caused to be carved of stone, exceeding in this even Alexander the Great, who had no divine honors paid him during his life. Those of his countrymen who were of our retinue did not fail to run thither to see and pay their respects to that holy man.”
The Dutch company lodged at Kanagawa, a town of six hundred houses, twenty-four miles from the capital. The coast of the bay appeared at low water to be of a soft clay, furnishing abundance of shell-fish and of certain sea-weeds, which were gathered and prepared for food. The road the next day (Tuesday, March 13), still hugging the shore, led on through a fruitful and populous district, in which were several fishing villages, the bay abounding with fish. As they approached Shinagawa, they passed a place of public execution, offering a show of human heads and bodies, some half putrefied and others half devoured—dogs, ravens, crows, and other ravenous beasts and birds, uniting to satisfy their appetites on these miserable remains.[24]
Shinagawa, immediately adjoining Yedo, of which it forms a sort of outer suburb, consisted of one long, irregular street, with the bay on the right and a hill on the left, on which stood some temples. Some few narrow streets and lanes turned off from the great one towards these temples, some of which were very spacious buildings, and all pleasantly seated, adorned within with gilt idols, and without with large carved images, curious gates, and staircases of stone leading up to them. One of them was remarkable for a magnificent tower, four stories high. “Though the Japanese,” says Kämpfer, “spare no trouble nor expense to adorn and beautify their temples, yet the best fall far short of that loftiness, symmetry, and stateliness, which is observable in some of our European churches.”
Having ridden upwards of two miles through Shinagawa, they stopped at a small inn, pleasantly seated on the seaside, from which they had a full view of the city and harbor of Yedo, crowded with many hundred ships and boats of all sizes and shapes. The smallest lay nearest the town, and the largest one or two leagues off, not being able to go higher by reason of the shallowing of the water. “Our Bugiō,” says Kämpfer, “quitted his norimono here and went on horseback, people of his extraction not being suffered to enter the capital in a norimono. We travelled near a mile to the end of the suburb of Shinagawa, and then entered the suburbs of Yedo, which are only a continuation of the former, there being nothing to separate them but a small guard-house. The bay comes here so close to the foot of the hill that there is but one row of small houses between it and the road, which, for some time, runs along the shore, but soon widens into several irregular streets of a considerable length, which, after about half an hour’s riding, became broader, more uniform, handsome, and regular, whence, and from the great throngs of people, we concluded that we were now got into the city. We kept to the great middle street, which runs northward across the whole city, though somewhat irregularly, passing over several stately bridges laid across small rivers and muddy canals, which run on our left towards the castle, and on our right towards the sea, as did also several streets turning off from the great one.