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Updated: June 28, 2025
Long, long ago, when the tallest fir trees on the Hakoné mountains were no higher than a rice-stalk, there lived in that part of the range called Ashigara, a little ruddy boy, whom his mother had named Kintarō, or Golden Darling. He was not like other boys, for having no children to play with, he made companions of the wild animals of the forest.
The Hakone Pass. A Youthful Mother. Native Jugglers. Temple of Shiba. Review of the Soldiery. Ludicrous Sights. A Native Fair at Tokio. A Poor Japanese Woman's Prayer. Passengers arriving at Yokohama are obliged to land in small boats, as there are no wharfs; and vessels, on account of shallow water, anchor half a mile off shore.
I had never heard of "sasa-ame" of Echigo. To begin with, the location is entirely different. "There seems to be no 'sasa-ame' in the country where I'm going," I explained, and she rejoined; "Then, in what direction?" I answered "westward" and she came back with "Is it on the other side of Hakone?" This give-and-take conversation proved too much for me.
Two little maids appeared to offer service, a pretty kimono and slippers suggested comfort, and I was content! Descending to the dining-room a little later, I met an English lady and her brother, who had been steamer and hotel companions several times, and this furnished more good cheer. The following morning, I joined an early party for the excursion to Lake Hakone.
Altogether it was a very characteristic scene, as we rolled into Yokohama at a mad gallop that night, returning from the Hakone Pass.
There was not one instance of disaffection; a sufficiently notable fact when we remember that the choice lay between the Throne and the Bakufu. A military council was at once convened by Yoshitoki to discuss a plan of campaign, and the view held by the great majority was that a defensive attitude should be adopted by guarding the Ashigara and Hakone passes.
At first it seemed as if the Kamakura men would emerge victorious. At the easily defended passes of Hakone they inflicted several successive though not signal defeats upon Mochifusa's army. But the appearance of Norizane in the field quickly changed the complexion of the campaign.
One, commanded by Ieyasu, marched by the seacoast road, the Tokaido; another, under Uesugi Kagekatsu and Maeda Toshiiye, marched by the mountain road, the Tosando, and the third attacked from the sea. None of these armies encountered any very serious resistance. The first approached Odawara by the Hakone range and the second by way of the Usui pass.
He placed Yoritomo in the keeping of two trusted wardens whose manors were practically conterminous in the valley of the Kano stream on the immediate west of Hakone Pass. These wardens were a Fujiwara, Ito Sukechika, and a Taira, who, taking the name Hojo from the locality of his manor, called himself Hojo Tokimasa.
Having said so much by way of preface, I beg my readers to fancy themselves wafted away to the shores of the Bay of Yedo a fair, smiling landscape: gentle slopes, crested by a dark fringe of pines and firs, lead down to the sea; the quaint eaves of many a temple and holy shrine peep out here and there from the groves; the bay itself is studded with picturesque fisher-craft, the torches of which shine by night like glow-worms among the outlying forts; far away to the west loom the goblin-haunted heights of Oyama, and beyond the twin hills of the Hakoné Pass Fuji-Yama, the Peerless Mountain, solitary and grand, stands in the centre of the plain, from which it sprang vomiting flames twenty-one centuries ago.
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