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OVER THE TOKAIDO TO YEDO. 269
sune". Then the two old battle-fields of Imasu and
its famous hill were seen. On the hill-top, according
to the story of artists and poets, and twenty-two
years before America was discovered, a noble of the
imperial court wished to stand and look down upon
the scenery of the valley by moonlight. The villagers
hearing of it, and with the idea of doing honor
to the occasion, tore off their old thatched roofs and
covered their cottages with shining new straw. They
were unable at first to understand the disgust of the
Mikado's courtier, who, seeing the staring new roofs,
ordered his bullock-cart turned back to Kyoto. The
charm was utterly lost, poverty being in this case
picturesqueness. A genuine sentimentalist was that
high-capped officer, in whom the artistic instinct
prevailed over the humane, and to whom popular
comfort was of less importance than a romantic view
by moonlight.
Nearly an hour was spent on the great battlefield
of Se*kigahara, where in October, 1600, the great
lye'yasu fought the most decisive battle in the history
of Japan, by which the future of the nation was
settled for a quarter of a millennium ;
for after this
battle lye'yasu built Yedo and firmly established
his
family in power. Just as they emerged upon the
Eastern Sea Road they passed a great grassy mound,
a memorial of the battle, for beneath it were buried
the heads of the enemy, which, according to the old
war customs, had been cut off as trophies of victory.
The bustling life of the chief high-road of Japan
was at once manifest. Villages were more numer-