Moats round the Tycoon's Palace, Yedo
Photograph
Moats round the Tycoon's Palace, Yedo
From the album Photographic Views and Costumes of Japan
ca. 1868
Albumen silver print
24.0 x 29.4 cm.
Purchase
1979.0059.0013
Inscriptions (applied label, printed, opposite page):
MOATS ROUND THE TYCOON'S PALACE-YEDO.
THESE moats have been often described, but they cover such a large space of ground, that it is difficult to give an idea of their extent without a plan of the central portion of the city of Yedo. FORTUNE, in speaking of them says, "I may compare the moat to a rope loosely coiled; the end of the outer coil dipping as it were into the river "(Todogawa) and supplying the whole with water. It is not correct to say, as is sometimes said, that there are "three concentric circles, each surrounded by a moat. The Tycoon's palace and the offices of his ministers are "situated in the centre of the coil, while the outer and wider portion encircles the mansions of the feudal princes."
Numerous substantial bridges cross the moat or moats ; the streets in this part of Yedo are wider and more regular than elsewhere-and from the number of Daimio's palaces, the buildings are both substantial and imposing. The inner town of the coil, which as it were, specially encircles the Tycoon's grounds, is in parts faced with high steep banks, ornamented with fine groups of stately junipers, pines, and other trees, and green with luxuriant turf, which used to be kept smooth and trim as a well ordered lawn-but which, latterly, since the Tycoon's absence at Osaka, have become overgrown, rank-looking, and disheveled. Parts of the moat are covered with the lotus.
MOATS ROUND THE TYCOON'S PALACE-YEDO.
THESE moats have been often described, but they cover such a large space of ground, that it is difficult to give an idea of their extent without a plan of the central portion of the city of Yedo. FORTUNE, in speaking of them says, "I may compare the moat to a rope loosely coiled; the end of the outer coil dipping as it were into the river "(Todogawa) and supplying the whole with water. It is not correct to say, as is sometimes said, that there are "three concentric circles, each surrounded by a moat. The Tycoon's palace and the offices of his ministers are "situated in the centre of the coil, while the outer and wider portion encircles the mansions of the feudal princes."
Numerous substantial bridges cross the moat or moats ; the streets in this part of Yedo are wider and more regular than elsewhere-and from the number of Daimio's palaces, the buildings are both substantial and imposing. The inner town of the coil, which as it were, specially encircles the Tycoon's grounds, is in parts faced with high steep banks, ornamented with fine groups of stately junipers, pines, and other trees, and green with luxuriant turf, which used to be kept smooth and trim as a well ordered lawn-but which, latterly, since the Tycoon's absence at Osaka, have become overgrown, rank-looking, and disheveled. Parts of the moat are covered with the lotus.
