Gathered here are the odds and ends about Oguri Kōzukenosuke that would not fit on the pages of the chronology or his works. There are four chapters: small stories about the man, how he lived from day to day, how later writers portrayed him, and traditions whose grounds are not clear.
Where something is tradition or a later invention, it is marked as such — “is said to”, “in the novel” — so that it can be told apart from history.
The four chapters
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An Arabian horse, a connection with Perry, the Great Eastern, a trick of swimming: small stories in which something of Oguri's character shows.
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Daily life and the household accounts
A liking for eel, the monkey showman, the year-end gifts, how the accounts were kept, the rite of the sash in pregnancy: how a hatamoto lived from day to day.
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Oguri Kōzukenosuke in literature and tradition
How later writers portrayed him, in Yoake Mae (before the dawn), Daibosatsu Tōge (the great bodhisattva pass) and others, with a note on where invention parts from history.
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The buried-treasure legend and other stories whose grounds are not clear, together with loose ends about the memorial museum and the historic sites, set out as tradition.
His life as history is set out in the chronology, and his achievements in detail under his works.