Banba

At left in the foreground, men rest their loaded horses beside a stone wall. On the right side of the street is a teahouse, and travelers walk past the lanterns and signboards at its front. A man in a rain cape and hat stands in the foreground, seeming to head toward us. Farther down the street, more people and houses continue.

Finely shaped pines are placed at left and right, showing the street that continues into the distance between them. The mountain at upper left is drawn large in shades of indigo, contrasting with the yellow of the roofs of the houses in front. The reddish-brown of the pine trunks beats a rhythm along both sides of the street.

Banba-juku was a post town in Sakata District, Omi Province. When a cut through to Maibara and Maibara Port were opened in the early Edo period, it also became the fork for a shortcut to Kyoto by switching to a boat on Lake Biwa. Nearby Renge-ji temple is known as the place where Hojo Nakatoki, the Rokuhara Tandai, took his own life with his clan.

This is a design by Hiroshige. The number on the vermilion seal is "sixty-three," and the same number is mistakenly stamped on the next design, Toriimoto. This composition, looking straight down the street of a post town, was one Hiroshige used repeatedly for Nakasendo stations.