“Having rode above two miles along this great street, and passed by fifty other streets, which turned off on both sides, we at last turned in ourselves; and, coming to our inn, found our lodgings ready in the upper story of a back house, which had no other access but through a by-lane. We arrived at one in the afternoon, having completed our journey from Nagasaki in twenty-nine days. “Yedo,[25] the residence of the emperor, the capital, and by much the largest city of the empire, is seated in the province Musashi, in 35° 32´ of northern latitude (according to Kämpfer’s observations), on a large plain, at the head of a gulf, plentifully stored with fish, crabs, and other shell-fish, but so shallow, with a muddy clay at the bottom, that no ships of bulk can come up to the city, but must be unladen a league or two below it. “Towards the sea the city hath the figure of a half-moon, and the Japanese will have it to be seven of their miles (about sixteen English miles) long, five (twelve English) broad, and twenty (fifty English) in circumference. It is not enclosed with a wall, no more than other towns in Japan, but cut through by many broad canals, with ramparts raised on both sides, and planted at the top with rows of trees, not so much for defence as to prevent the fires—which happen here too frequently—from making too great a havoc. “A large river, rising westward of the city, runs through it, and loses itself in the harbor. It sends off a considerable arm, which encompasses the castle, and thence falls into the harbor, in five different streams, every one of which hath its particular name, and a stately bridge over it. The chief, and most famous, of these bridges, two hundred and fifty-two feet in length, is called Nihonbashi, or the bridge of Japan, mention of which has already been made, as the point from which distances are reckoned all over the empire.