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These 5 distances from Edo on an ancient map are given in ri, but I do not know what the symbol I circled in red means. Is it an old writing for a numeral or what?
Also, how do you read the last distance on the left which includes the da kanji?

Reading of the distances;
From left to right,
九十七里　　 97 Ri
百十一里　　 111 Ri
百十三里ヨ 　Over113 Ri　
百四十三里ヨ Over 143 Ri
百四十四里　 144 Ri
In the last distance display the "田" character is just the miswritten form of "四”
The katakana letter ヨ　→Ｙo （余）stands for "Over"

With regards,
I.Nagy

Thanks a lot, BUT, what about the symbol I circled in red ??? You did not show it in your reply. However, it is present after the Hyaku sign in the distances shown in the left. What is its meaning?
I read the other distances as you did but the da kanji bothered me before you interpreted it as miswritten.

１，The character encircled in red is 四
２，The 百 (100) characters are on the right because only four same size characters can fit in a line here. This is fully compliant with the rules of Japanese vertical writing.
3, 田 is miswritten for 四
The total distance of Tokaidō between Edo(Nihonbashi) and Ōsaka (Moriguchi) on old maps is about this.

With regards,
I.Nagy

the character you circled in red is the character for the number 4

Fine!
Thanks a lot

Fine!
Thanks a lot

It's 四 = 4.
田里 should be tari = hometown.

Dear Horst,
If I read you well, the red circled symbol stands for 4, and the "da" kanji is associated with "ri" to mean hometown. Am I correct?
I am puzzled because I got another interpretation which states that yon was miswritten into da, but which does not mention anything about the red circled symbol.
So?

The last line reads down as 四十田里 (Shisodari - from Google Translate), which the Romani Desu translator indicates would total literally in Japanese as forty distances of 3.927 km or 2.44 miles.

FYI: All the other characters similar to 四 (four) are 四 but just differ slightly in stroke formation on the left side.

Hope this helps,

Bill H

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