The territories owned by great feudatories or _daimyo_ in the Ashikaga age were by no means compact entities definitely bounded. Their frontiers constantly shifted to and fro according to frequently recurring waxings and wanings in strength of this or that _daimyo_, and these fluctuations depended, in their turn, on the results sometimes of petty skirmishes and sometimes of political intrigues, so that an unwavering steadiness was the least thing to be expected at that time. This politically unsettled condition of Japan, however, was in a certain sense a boon to our country, for it took away all the hindrances which lay in the way of internal communication, and paved the path to the ultimate political unity of the empire. I do not say of course that travelling at that time was quite safe from any kind of molestation, but the main obstacles to communication were rather of a social than of a political nature. In other words, they were of kinds which could not be got rid of in a like stage of civilisation, even if Japan had been politically not dismembered, and adventurous merchants did not shrink from facing such difficulties. No need to speak of those piratical traders, who went out from the western islands and the coastal regions of the Inland Sea on their devastating errands to the Korean and the Chinese coasts. The less warlike merchants ventured to trade with the Ainu, who had retired into the island of Hokkaido, and had not been heard of since the beginning of the Ashikaga period. Among the itinerants travelling a long distance may be counted the professional literati also, the experts in the art of composing the _renga_, the short Japanese poems. They went about throughout the provinces, visiting feudal lords in their castles, teaching them the literary pastimes, thus imparting their first lesson in aesthetic education to those who had never tasted it. Courtiers, too, weakminded as they were, travelled great distances, to call on some rich bourgeois or powerful _daimyo_, who were thinking of becoming their munificent patrons, and taught them, besides the afore-said art of composing Japanese poems, the sport of kicking leather balls and other leisurely pastimes which had been the favourites among the courtiers in Kyoto, and received in return a generous hospitality and fees for the lessons which they gave. Buddhist priests were the third set of busy travellers of the time. Missionary activities had not much relaxed since the Kamakura period, though no influential sect had been started in this age. Every nook and corner of the island empire had received the footprints of these religious itinerants, and some of the more enterprising priests even crossed the sea to the island of what is now Hokkaido in order to preach to the Ainu dwelling there. Pilgrims to the shrines of Ise, where the ancestress of the Imperial line was enshrined, may also be counted among the busy interprovincial travellers.