“Hakone is one of the favourite playgrounds of Tokyo, and is the name given to a block of mountains not far from the base of Fuji, at the neck of the rocky peninsula of Izu which juts out into the sea about sixty miles west of Tokyo.

“… Yumoto is practically the beginning of Hakone. It is a cluster of hotels and shops which have gathered around some hot springs which give their name to the place. The hotels are good, the baths are delightful, the scenery around you is beautiful. Two streams united their waters at Yumoto, and two valleys lead you into the heart of the mountains.

“The old-fashioned Japanese will be content to stay at Yumoto and potter about; young Japan doffs it’s ‘high collar’ at this point, and, like the foreigner, commences to climb.”

– Every-day Japan, by Arthur Lloyd, M.A., 1909

Sammaibashi, Yumoto, Hakone, c. 1910.

“From Odawara, standing on the Tokaido at the mouth of a wide fertile valley, and at the junction of the road from the Idzu peninsula, we followed the Tokaido for six miles farther to Sammai Bashi [three sheets bridge], where the road to Miyanoshta leaves the Tokaido, and we were recommended to a still further degradation in travelling vehicles in being carried in a cango on men’s shoulders.

“… We left the Tokaido and the village of Yumoto on our left, near which is the small cemetery containing the tombs of the Odawara chiefs, and came down on the watering-place Tonosawa. Both these villages owe their present prosperity to the hot springs, which give them an unceasing supply of hot water, being much frequented by natives.

“The whole road or pathway hence to Miyanoshita is very bad, toiling up and down over rocky, broken ground, while it might have been taken up near the stream the whole way on an easy ascent. But the scenery is pretty as one ascends the sides of a narrowing valley, covered as it was, till recently, by woods of cryptomeria.”

– Gleanings from Japan, by Walter G. Dickson, 1889