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Updated: May 12, 2025
On February 4, 1868, two days after our return, a party of samurai, some five hundred strong, belonging to the Prince of Bizen, marched through the town by the Tokaido. As they passed the foreign concession, which bordered this high-road, they turned and fired upon the Europeans. The noise was heard on board the ships, and the commotion on shore was evident, people fleeing in every direction.
At this time there occurred an incident which had the most far-reaching consequences. A party of British subjects, three gentlemen and a lady, met, at Namamugi on the Tokaido, the cortege of the Satsuma feudatory as he was returning from Yedo.
The leaders chosen for this task were all members of the Imperial family a great-uncle, an uncle, a younger brother, and a first cousin of the Emperor and the fields of operation assigned to them were: first, to the west along the northern shore of the Inland Sea; secondly, to the northwest into Tamba, Tango, and Tajima; thirdly, to the north along the sea of Japan, and finally to the east along the route now known as the Tokaido.
Descending this little pass the Tokaido traverses a level rice-field plain, crosses the Abe-kawa, and approaches the sea-coast at Shidzuoka, a city of thirty thousand inhabitants. The view of Fuji, now but a short distance ahead, is extremely beautiful; the smooth road sweeps around the gravelly beach, almost licked by the waves.
Such untimely end was far from the original intention; for the line was meant for a through line along the Nakasendo from Tokyo to Kioto, and great things were expected of it. But the engineering difficulties at this point, and still more at the Wada toge, a little farther on, proving too great, the project was abandoned, and the through line built along the Tokaido instead.
For in Japan, all the old arteries of travel had distinctive names, the Nakasendo or Mid-Mountain road, the Tokaido or Eastern Sea road, and so forth. Like certain other country relations, their importance was due to their city connections, not to their own local magnitude. For, when well out of sight of the town, they do not hesitate to shrink to anything but imposing proportions.
To this day there is a spot along the great Tokaido railway named Yaidzu, which is said to be the very place where this thrilling event took place. Thus did the brave Prince Yamato Take escape out of the snare laid for him by his enemy. He was full of resource and courage, and finally outwitted and subdued all his foes.
Since the completion of the railway between Tokio and Kanagawa, travellers journeying from the capital down the Tokaido usually ride on the train to Kanagawa, so that the jinrikisha journey proper nowadays commences at the latter city.
Once upon a time, a certain Rônin, Tajima Shumé by name, an able and well-read man, being on his travels to see the world, went up to Kiyôto by the Tôkaidô. One day, in the neighbourhood of Nagoya, in the province of Owari, he fell in with a wandering priest, with whom he entered into conversation.
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.
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