Of the five highways (gokaido) built in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate to radiate through the country from its capital at Edo (present-day Tokyo), the best-known nowadays is the Tokaido coastal route to Kyoto. Hardly less used during the Edo Period (1603-1867), however, was the mountain route to the Imperial seat, the Nakasendo, along which daimyo and their families traveled between the capital and their provincial domains.
In this 1830s woodcut print by Hasegawa Settan, though, the scene on the Nakasendo at the village of Sugamo on Edo's northwest outskirts speaks not of a daimyo's progress, but of ordinary folk's lives one fine summer's afternoon.
Refreshment stalls line the way as travelers pass on foot, on horseback or borne in palanquins. In the middle of the road a scantily clad, angry porter is calmed by an older man, seemingly the keeper of the stand on the left. Otherwise, it's a peaceful, languid scene, with children making their jaunty way with an insect net and a dragonfly on a thread; there are watermelons for sale, and travelers resting in the shade of stalls.