Hyuga Province: Aburatsu Harbor and Oshima at Obi

In the lower left foreground a two-story building and pines can be seen, from which one looks down on the blue inlet. At right ships with tall masts lie anchored in a row, with small boats also passing. The shore at left is an arc of sand, beyond which a mountain with ocher rock plunges into the sea.

At the back, rocky islands thick with pines line up, and beyond them the open sea spreads with white sails floating in dots. The sky above the horizon is dyed red and shaded into the indigo higher up. Mountains and islands have their names written small. The composition naturally leads the eye from the building in the foreground to the inlet and then the open sea.

Aburatsu was the port of the Obi domain and flourished as a shipping port for Obi cedar, the domain's specialty. Obi Oshima in the title is thought to refer to the Oshima island floating off Aburatsu. The domain opened a canal at the port, and cedar timber was carried out by boat and sent to Osaka and elsewhere.

The National Diet Library's impression has the same composition. The composition looking down on the inlet from high ground conveys the form of a natural good harbor. Hiroshige is thought to have drawn this harbor at the southern end of Kyushu on the basis of what he had heard.