AT A GLANCE
Why go?
On a steep hillside of Chikugomachi, a short climb from Nagasaki Station, the cemetery of Honrenji temple (本蓮寺) holds the grave of Sawamura Sōnojō, a young samurai from Tosa who threw in his lot with Sakamoto Ryōma's maritime band, the Kaiōtai. It is a small, quietly moving landmark on Nagasaki's Bakumatsu trail, less a grand monument than a stone set among the tombs, reached by the long, narrow, vertiginous steps that make the city's hillside cemeteries so distinctive.↗
The site rewards anyone drawn to the closing years of the samurai era or following Ryōma's story through Kyushu. The grave stands where the temple grounds overlook the harbour and the lights of Nagasaki, and the same sweeping view was once admired by the very men whose fate this stone records.
A young man of the Kaiōtai
Sawamura Sōnojō (1843-1868) was born in Tosa, today's Kōchi Prefecture, the son of a low-ranking retainer. He joined the imperial-loyalist Tosa Kinnōtō, left his own domain in secret to pursue a national cause, and entered the school of the statesman Katsu Kaishū. He ended up among the energetic young men of the Kameyama Shachū, the trading-and-military company Sakamoto Ryōma founded in Nagasaki, whose members were known around town for their bright white trousers.
