The landscape in the accompanying 1830s woodblock print depicts the valley of the Kandagawa River.
Focusing on a boat in the foreground, artist Hasegawa Settan (1778-1843) has captured the moment when the three men on board sipping sake hear a cuckoo cry. They all look up as the bird flies high into the sky. Farther upstream are more boats, suggesting this early summer time is a good season for a river jaunt.
Settan sketched the scene as he stood about where JR Ochanomizu Station is now, facing west toward Mount Fuji on the horizon. The building on the right is a restaurant, now no longer standing, while the wooded cliff on the left used to border the northern perimeter of Edo (present-day Tokyo).