The Shibuya River starts at Shinjuku Gyoen. Running southward, it makes a big horseshoe curve near Ebisu and heads north to Roppongi. At Ichi-no-hashi, it abruptly bends east to eventually pour into Tokyo Bay. The river's upper reaches are now culverts, but water emerges just south of Shibuya Station in a concrete conduit. In its lower reaches the river (mentioned in this column Oct. 7, 2005) has a different name -- Furukawa.
Along the middle reaches -- in the Harajuku, Shibuya and Hiroo areas -- the waters used to be abundant and were used to run mills, a crucial source of power in preindustrialized Japan. In this region on the border between Edo City to the east and farming villages to the west, mills were important for grinding grain into flour or in removing the hulls of harvested rice. As just about everyone ate steamed rice as their staple food three times a day, preparing kome for the daily dinner table was a profitable business.
The accompanying woodcut print, titled "Hiroo Mizuguruma (The Hiroo Mill)," depicts the largest mill along the Shibuya River. As the mill house is half hidden behind trees, the viewer might be attracted first by a lively bunch of people just about to walk over a bridge. Carrying fruit and bottles tied to a pole are two men, one of whom is looking back and finishing off a joke, with the others bursting into laughter. The clumps of susuki grass growing near the bridge suggest the season is autumn.