小夜の中山　日坂　かけ川迄一り廿五丁

About this print

A road winds up along a ridge where pines stand. Travelers follow one another along it, and in front of a thatched teahouse in the foreground lies a big round stone. This is the Nissaka scene from Tokai Meisho Kaisei Dochuki (Famous Places of the Tokaido, Revised Travel Guide), published in 1875 (Meiji 8), in which Utagawa Hiroshige III redrew the Tokaido of the Meiji era. The National Diet Library titles it Kaisei Gojusan Eki (The Fifty-three Stations, Revised).

Sayo no Nakayama is a pass between the Kanaya and Nissaka post towns, and it was counted with Hakone and Suzuka among the hardest stretches of the Tokaido. The pass has the legend of the Yonakiishi (Night-Weeping Stone), in which the spirit of a murdered pregnant woman entered a stone, which cried every night. The stone first sat in the middle of the pass road, but when Emperor Meiji was to travel this road, it was moved to a teahouse and then into a temple's grounds. After that it was also carried off to an exhibition and elsewhere before settling in its present spot.

Today it sits by the roadside just before the Sayo no Nakayama Tunnel on Route 1. The pass is also known for Kosodate Ame (child-raising candy), named after the story that the temple's priest raised the child born in the legend on candy.

Glossary