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An English naturalist named Gilmart visited Naha in 1882 and, based on
a stay of barely three days, he wrote a detailed account in two chapters of "Seeing
and Listening in Great Ryukyu." The book includes an account of his visit
to Shuri Castle and he described the sorry state of the Seiden, which the
army detachment was using as its barracks, as follows:
"A more dreary sight than this can hardly be imagined. We wandered from
room to room. We roamed along corridors and into reception areas, into ladies'
rooms and servants' quarters. We walked all around that building that is so easy
to become lost in. It was a scene of ruin such as I despair of being able to convey
in words. Clearly no one has lived there for a long time. Decorative fixtures
have been ripped away. Pictures - decorations which appealed to the Japanese and
Ryukyuans - had been torn from a small wall. Dust and time are indistinguishable.
Half-rotted tatami mats are strewn about with large patches of bare floor
showing. The floorboards are rotting and full of holes making it very dangerous
to walk around. Wood has been ripped out for firewood and the shafts of sunlight
that can be seen here and there through the ceiling indicate that the roof is
in as bad a shape as the rest of the building " (quoted in Toshiichi Sudo,
Records of Foreign Ships in Ryukyu.) Gilmart's visit to Shuri Castle was
scarcely three years after Sho Tai was forced to leave.
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