The enormous amount of money expended on these shrines will amaze any foreign visitor, as well as the profound reverence shown by the Japanese for these resting places of the shoguns.
"The Critic in the Orient"
George Hamlin Fitch
They are said to have been planted as an offering to the buried shoguns by a man who was too poor to place a bronze lantern at their shrines.
"Unbeaten-Tracks-in-Japan"
Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy)
It was not part of my plan to stay at the beautiful yadoya which receives foreigners in Hachiishi, and I sent Ito half a mile farther with a note in Japanese to the owner of the house where I now am, while I sat on a rocky eminence at the top of the street, unmolested by anybody, looking over to the solemn groves upon the mountains, where the two greatest of the shoguns "sleep in glory."
"Unbeaten-Tracks-in-Japan"
Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy)