About five and a half miles from Kawasaki travelers arrived at the slightly hilly district of Kanagawa, the site of modern Yokohama. Here the waters of the bay came up to the feet of the teahouses and inns that lined the highway.
Twenty-seven years after this print was made, the black ships of Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into these very waters to awaken Japan from its three-hundred-year sleep.
In the present scene maids from the shops are attempting to entice travelers inside. The reisho version of the Fifty-three Stages shows the fronts of the shops as seen from a point farther up the hill, while the gyösho version shows travelers looking back on the town.