"The world is wider than we can imagine," said the novelist Iharu Saikaku (1642-93). It's a pregnant thought under a regime doing its utmost to narrow the world. A contemporary of Basho's, Saikaku shows us a restlessness of spirit quite different from the monkish poet's. "There's nothing," declared Saikaku, "you won't find somewhere in the world."
Edo Period Japan is not readily associated with travel. We remember it more for restrictions on travel -- on movement of any kind; the Tokugawa Shogunate seemed intent on clamping the universe in place. Leaving the country was forbidden. Circulating within it required documents that would satisfy inspectors at the 53 sekisho (barriers) on the five national highways. The documents, obtainable at one's temple or from the head of one's village or household group, specified the trip's purpose and bore the name of a sponsor or guarantor. "Falsification of such information," writes historian Marius B. Jansen, "could cost all concerned dearly."
Only once does Basho mention a barrier other than the symbolic Shirakawa in present-fay Fukushima Prefecture. It was on a back road leading west from Hiraizumi in present-day Iwate Prefecture. "Since there were very few travelers on this road, we were regarded with suspicion by the barrier guards, and it was only after considerable effort that we were able to cross the barrier." A guard offered him hospitality when a storm blew up. Primitive hospitality indeed, though kindly meant: