les, under
a law of Iyemits[)u], the third of the Tokugawa line, were compelled to
spend half of each year at the city of the Sh[=o]guns; and each had his
_yashiki_, or large house and garden, in the city. At this house, his
family must reside permanently, as hostages for the loyalty of their
lord while away. The annual journeys to and from Yedo were events not
only in the lives of the daimi[=o]s and their trains of retainers, but
in the lives of the country people who lived along the roads by which
they must travel. The time and style of each journey for each daimi[=o]
were rigidly prescribed in the laws of Iyemits[)u], as well as the
behavior of the country people who might meet the procession moving
towards Yedo, or returning therefrom. When some noble, or any member of
his family, was to pass through a certain section of the country, great
preparations were made beforehand. Not only was traffic stopped along
the route, but every door and window had to be closed. By no means was
any one to show himself, or to look in any way upon the passing
procession. To do so was to commit a profane deed, punishable by a fine.
Among other things, no cooking was allowed on that day. All the food
must be prepared the day before, as the air was supposed to become
polluted by the smoke from the fires. Thus through crowded cities, full
and busy with life, the daimi[=o] in his curtained palanquin, with
numerous retinue, would pass by; but wherever he approached, the place
would be as deserted and silent as if plague-stricken. It is hardly
necessary to add that these journeys, attended with so much ceremony
and inconvenience to the people, were not as frequent as the trips now
taken, at a moment's notice, from one city to another, by these very
same men.

One story current in T[=o]ky[=o] shows the narrowing effect of such
seclusion. A noble who had traveled into Yedo, across one of the large
bridges built over the Sumida River, remarked one day to his companions
that he was greatly disappointed on seeing that bridge. "From the
pictures," he said, "which I have seen, the bridge seemed alive with
people, the centre of life and activity, but the artists must
exaggerate, for not a soul was on the bridge when I passed by."

The castle of the Sh[=o]gun in Yedo, with its moats and fortifications,
and its fine house and great _kura_, was reproduced on a small scale in
the castles scattered through the country; and as in Yedo the _yashikis_
of