Kyoto was the home of refinement and culture, but the political centre had shifted to Yedo, and was swarming with ronin, or independent samurai who were not attached to any particular feudal lord. They all drifted to Yedo to seek their fortunes, and Kansaburo saw a chance of utilising these wandering spirits. The reasons which led to his establishment of a theatre are given in a book he wrote called _Temaye Miso_, which being interpreted means: “My own bean soup”—in other words, “talking shop” about his profession. In this he says that as the ronin from different parts of Japan assembled in Yedo after the fall of Osaka Castle, when Hideyori, the son of Hideyoshi, perished in the flames, and Iyeyasu became the ruler of feudal Japan, there were many soldiers of fortune who had been deprived of their living and were so reduced that they were obliged to beg for food from door to door, reciting utai, or choruses of the Nō, to the accompaniment of the tsuzumi, or small drum of the Nō stage. He planned to employ these strollers by starting a theatre and giving them an opportunity to make use of their Nō training. In consequence the Saruwaka-za was established in 1624 at Nakabashi, near Kyobashi, in Yedo, and while Kansaburo waited for his application to erect a theatre to be granted, he dreamed that a white crane with a branch of icho, the tree with fan-shaped leaves, in its mouth, entered his house from the summit of Mount Fuji. This was a lucky dream indeed; and proceeding forthwith to a diviner for explanation, he was told it was a good omen, and that his request would be granted. Accordingly, after the theatre was constructed, he had placed on the curtain hung around the drum tower over the entrance a design of a crane, which came to be associated with Yedo theatres for many years afterwards. Also, on the curtains hung at the entrance and within the theatre, he used the design of an icho leaf. An incident in Kansaburo’s career shows the importance in which he was held, and proves the position of the actor, who had not yet come to be regarded as a despised class as in after years. In 1633, when the Shogun’s pleasure boat Atakamaru entered Yedo Bay from Shimoda in Izu Province, Kansaburo was summoned and ordered to stand at the bow of the vessel and to sing a sailor’s song. By way of reward he was presented with a sum of money, a coat used in battle, and other military gifts. While it was common at the time to refer to actors as “riverside beggars”, the treatment accorded Kansaburo was a special honour to his profession, and was remembered long after when the playfolks were regarded as social pariah.