The town of Tsumago is well known to Japanese, together with the town of Magome, through Shimazaki Toson's novel Yoakemae (Before the Dawn), indisputably a masterpiece of Japanese historical fiction.

Toson, however, did not write this novel simply because of his interest in history. The main character is modelled after Shimazaki Masaki, Toson's father, who was the head of the Magome honjin and an enthusiastic proponent of Kokugaku (National Learning) as postulated by Hirata Atsutane. Shimazaki Masaki could not go along with the historical current after the Meiji Restoration and went insane. He was confined to one room in his home. It could be said that Toson wrote Yoakemae as a requiem for his father. Sorrow permeates the novel. Toson must have experienced another sadness as well in his feelings for his birthplace. This sadness was associated with his immoral conduct with his niece Komako which he described in Shinsei (New Life).

The title Shinsei was chosen by Toson who had probably contemplated suicide; he felt he could not continue to live without confessing his seduction of his niece. I feel that this dark event cast a large shadow over Yoakemae.

One summer around 1960, I stayed in Tsumago. I chose Tsumago as I wanted to avoid the stifling heat of Kyoto and study in the cool environment of Kiso. I still have warm memories of the kindness extended to me by the residents of Kiso. Oyufu of Oguroya, Toson's first love, was still alive and Komako lived quietly in the detached quarters of a Tsumago residence. I met Komako. She was beautiful, graceful and reserved. I hated Toson who, by exposing their liaison in Shinsei, had forced Komako to live in the shadows.

Last summer, I spent a few days at Gero Hot Springs with my wife and grandchild. From Gero, I made a day trip by car to Tsumago, my first visit in almost 40 years. Tsumago's facade has been preserved as a cultural property and the town bustled with tourists. I reminisced about the rustic Tsumago I had encountered 40 years earlier.

The painter of this book, Tsumago: Road to Tomorrow, is Shimazaki Hiroshi. He is a great- grandson of Shimazaki Hirosuke, the last head of Tsumago honjin. Hirosuke was the second son of Shimazaki Masaki and thus a brother of Toson. Hirosuke was adopted by the Shimazaki family of Tsumago honjin, his mother's family. Hisa and Komako were his daughters. They moved to Tokyo where they lived with their widowed uncle, Toson, and looked after his children. Hisa also attended school. Later, she married a diplomat, Tanaka Bunichiro, and went abroad with him. Shimazaki Hiroshi is the grandson of Hisa and Bunichiro.

Upon graduating from university, Shimazaki Hiroshi worked briefly for Oki Electric Industry. After resigning from the company, he studied cultural geography in Canada. He is now a Canadian citizen and has written a variety of interesting books including Central America: World Corridor. Shimazaki spent part of 1998 in Kyoto, Japan, as a Visiting Professor at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies. Among other things, he participated in a series of interdisciplinary seminars organized by Professor Senda Minoru. As well, he completed a sketch book entitled Living Kyoto in which he captured various Kyoto scenes. I understand that while he was in Kyoto he visited Tsumago for the first time, and was captivated by the town. Compared with the Kyoto sketches, the Tsumago sketches are very dark in appearance. While lighter colours were used extensively in the Kyoto scenes, darker colours, particularly shades of muddy blue, are dominant in many of the Tsumago paintings. Why is this the case?

I think it is because of his lineage. A poet's blood flows in Shimazaki Hiroshi's veins as it did in Toson's. And when Shimazaki Hiroshi visited Tsumago, the birthplace of his grandmother and Komako, he must have felt deep in his heart the sorrow that has tainted Tsumago. It appears that throughout his life Toson felt that he was an eternal traveller. Hiroshi, even more than Toson, must feel that he is a traveller. Just as Toson's profound novel, Yoakemae, is a crystallization of the former travellers's attachment to his birthplace, these sketches are the crystallization of the contemporary traveller's affection for his ancestral home. These works of art impress upon the viewer the artist's deep ties to his roots.

Tohyama Takashi, whose word pictures harmonize with the watercolours, was once a student at Ritsumeikan University where I taught. His succinct descriptions precisely portray Tsumago's past. I believe a fine book has come into being.