Ushibori in Hitachi Province

From the lower right of the picture, a boat covered with a toma (a cover woven of sedge or thatch) juts out large on a diagonal. Inside the boat can be seen cargo, people, and daily tools, hinting at life aboard. At left a man spills rice-washing water onto the surface, and two white herons startled by the sound fly up. The reed beds surrounding the boat are drawn with many layered fine lines.

The toma boat has a shallow bottom and is suited to traveling shallow waters such as Lake Kasumigaura. The man may be preparing breakfast. The cool palette based on indigo conveys the cold, still air before dawn. It is a stillness in which one seems to hear only the sound of the rice water falling and the beating of the herons' wings.

Ushibori was on the eastern shore of Lake Kasumigaura, near the junction of the Yokotone and Kitatone Rivers. It lay on the route from Tamatsukuri to Itako and Kashima, and was a key point of water transport as the gateway to Kasumigaura. This picture looks from the northeast toward the southwest, to Fuji across Lake Kasumigaura. The lake and the plateaus on its shores were known as scenic places for viewing Fuji and Mt. Tsukuba.