Among the maegashira on the ranking appear the springs of Bungo (Oita Prefecture). They were already described in the Bungo Fudoki, compiled in the Nara period. In the entry for Hayami district (around today's Beppu city), these springs appear:
The Red Hot Spring. Its opening is on Mount Kamado, northwest of the district office. It is over fifteen jo, about forty-five meters, around. The water is red and mixed with mud. This mud can be used to paint the pillars of houses. When the mud flows out, it changes color, becomes clear water and flows away to the east. So this spring is called the "Red Hot Spring."
The Kuberi hot well. This well is on the eastern bank of Mount Kawanao, west of the district office. When someone shouts loudly beside it, the water roars in alarm and shoots up about two jo, some six meters. Its steam is so hot no one can approach. All the plants and trees around it have withered. So it is called the "Angry Hot Well." The local people call it the "Kuberi hot well."
The spring of red mud, and the spring that bursts up when startled by a voice, call to mind the "jigoku," the boiling "hells," of today's Beppu. People thirteen hundred years ago, too, stared in wonder at the strange sights of Beppu's springs.