Mizuguchi, which was a little more than six miles from Tsuchiyama, was the point at which the Tokaido left the mountains and entered the Kansai Plain.
The best-known product of this area was the shavings of dried gourds, which are used in a variety of Japanese dishes. Hiroshige's very gentle print shows a woman and her children hanging out strips of the gourd for drying, and similar strips are to be seen hanging on the fences at the right. The scene is one which might well be observed in remoter parts of the Japanese countryside even today, but it is doubtful that Hiroshige actually sketched it from life,
since there is an almost identical picture in Famous Places on the Tokaido, Illustrated. .