CHAPTER XL
Japanese Merchants—Journey from Miyako to Yedo—Botany of the Mountains—Rainy Weather—Coverings for the Head and Feet—Yedo—Astronomers and Physicians—Acupuncture—Moxa [Mogusa]—Other Japanese Remedies—Method of wearing the Hair—Visits to the Emperor and his Chief Officers—Japanese Dress—Books and Maps—Succession of Emperors—Departure from Yedo—Gnats—Fire-flies—Threshing—Vegetables and Fruits—Condition of the Japanese Farmer—Casting Copper—Actors and Dancers—Thunberg’s Opinion of the Japanese—A. D. 1775-1776.
The travellers remained four days at Miyako, during which the accustomed visits were paid to the chief justice and to the two governors. A new advance of money was also made to them here, Thunberg’s share being three hundred taels, in gold koban, to be charged against the kamban money standing to his credit from the sale of his private goods, and to be laid out in the purchase of such rarities and merchandise as he chose. Here, again, the Dutch were waited on by the merchants, from whom they bespoke several articles in sowas (?) and lackered ware, to be ready against their return. Of these Japanese merchants, Thunberg observes that they are the only persons in the country, except the emperor, who can become rich, and that they sometimes accumulate very considerable sums; but they cannot, as in Europe, purchase titles, or raise themselves by their money to a higher rank. The position of the trading and manufacturing class seems, indeed, almost precisely the same with that which they held in Europe during the prevalence of feudal ideas.
Commerce, however, was free from any embarrassments by tolls or duties, and a considerable internal trade, of which Miyako was the centre (several annual fairs being held there), was carried on in tea, silk goods, porcelain, rice, lackered ware, etc.
Setting out from Miyako on the fourteenth of April, the travellers, in passing lake Ōtsu, were treated to a delicious fish, of the salmon kind, the largest of which seen by Thunberg weighed about ten pounds. Finding, in the course of their journey, that this species of fish was often served up, they ordered some to be smoked, against their return; but they did not prove equal to European salmon, either in size, fatness, or style of curing. The country still continued as populous as before. In the villages were many almond, peach, and apricot trees, which now presented a very beautiful appearance, blossoming on the bare branches before the leaves unfolded. These, as well as the plum, cherry, apple, and pear[51] trees, sometimes bore double flowers, upon which the Japanese put a high value.
The road having brought them to the sea-shore, Thunberg observed the Fucus saccharinus, called by the Japanese Kombu, or sometimes Noshi. Cleansed and dried, it is eaten, though very tough, either boiled or raw,—in the latter case cut into strips, which are folded in little squares, a considerable number of which are usually strewed on the little tables, or salvers, on which the complimentary presents, so common with the Japanese, are offered. These presents, generally of trifling value, are always accompanied with a complimentary paper (so called), folded in a peculiar manner, and having slips of this fucus pasted to both ends of it.
The mountain, Fuji, was now in sight, and presently the mountainous tract of Hakone was entered, separating the bays of Tōtōmi and Yedo. It took a day to cross these mountains, which were covered with bushes and forest trees, and were the only hills in Japan, except those close to Nagasaki, which Thunberg was permitted freely to wander over and examine. “This day,” he says, “I was seldom in my norimono; but in the same degree as I eased my bearers of their burden, I rendered the journey troublesome to the interpreters, and more particularly to the inferior officers, who, by rotation, were to follow my steps. I was not allowed, indeed, to go far out of the road, but having been previously used to run up rocks in the African mountains, I frequently got to a considerable distance before my anxious and panting followers, and thereby gained time to gather a great many of the most curious and scarcest plants, which had just begun to flower, and which I put in my handkerchief.”
Among the trees growing in this tract was the Thuya dolebrata, planted everywhere by the road-side, tall, straight, and with leaves of silver-white on their under sides,—in Thunberg’s opinion the handsomest of the fir tribe. There were no less than six peculiar species of maple, all of great beauty. Cedars (Cupressus japonica), a common tree throughout the country, grew here in great perfection. The straightest and tallest of the firs, their trunks ran up straight as a candle, and, being both light and very durable, the timber was employed for all sorts of constructions, and also for cabinet work, the veins showing to advantage when covered with varnish. The wood of this tree, next to the Pinus silvestris, is that most employed by carpenters, etc. He also observed several species of oaks,[52] the common barberry, in full blossom, several species of the Vaccinia, or whortleberry, a wild pear-tree, a shrub with leaves so rough that they are used for polishing by the joiners, the Oryris japonica, bearing its flowers at the middle of its leaves; also, several beautiful flowering shrubs, Viburna, with double as well as single flowers, two species of Spirea, the Citrus tripoliata, and the Gardenia Florida, of which the seed-vessels afforded a yellow dye. The dragon lily (Arum dracontium), and the edible species of the same plant (Arum esculentum), the eddo, or tania, of the West Indies, and taro, of the Sandwich Islands (Caladium in more recent classifications), were cultivated in some spots.
By night the sea-shore was again reached, at Odawara, whence two days’ journey took them to Yedo, where they arrived, on account of the delay in the sea voyage, at a period unusually late, but which Thunberg notes as an advantage, since it gave him, both going and returning, a better opportunity to observe the vegetation of the country. During the journey there had been rain sometimes, but not too often, and the cold had been such as occasionally to make fires very comfortable. The Japanese, he observed, bore the cold better than the rain, which did not altogether agree with their bare feet and heads. For the feet they used only slippers of rice straw,[53] left at the door whenever they entered a house, consisting of a sole, without upper leather or hind-piece (kept on by a thong, or strap, held fast between the toes), and soon soaked and spoiled by the rain, on which occasion, indeed, high wooden clogs were sometimes substituted. Ordinarily, even while travelling, no covering for the head was worn, but in hard rains they used an umbrella, a hat of plaited grass, and a cloak of oil-paper, for which the poorer class substituted a piece of straw matting, thrown over their backs.
The weather, during a stay of twenty-six days at Yedo, from April 28 to May 25, was often damp, almost every day cloudy, with sometimes drizzling, and sometimes heavy, rain. Several slight shocks of earthquake were felt. Several fires occurred, which were soon extinguished. A great fire, during the Dutch visit of 1772, had burned from noon till eight at night, spreading over a vast space, and making it necessary to remove the Dutch three times.
Down to the day of audience, which did not take place till the 18th of May, the Dutch were not suffered to go out. Numbers of persons obtained, however, permission to visit them. The first who called were five physicians and two astronomers, prompted especially by Thunberg’s scientific reputation, which the interpreters had noised abroad, and who were very inquisitive on various points of science. The questions of the astronomers related principally to eclipses, which it appeared they could not calculate to minutes, and frequently not even to hours; but besides the difficulty of carrying on this conversation through interpreters, another arose, from the fact that Thunberg’s astronomy had grown a little rusty, and that neither he nor the Japanese had any books to which they could refer.
In matters of medicine[54] he felt more at home, especially as two of the Japanese doctors could speak Dutch,—one of them tolerably well. They also had some knowledge of natural history, collected partly from Chinese and Dutch books, and partly from the Dutch physicians who had visited Yedo, but who frequently had not been very well able to instruct them, as they were often, to use Thunberg’s expression, “little better than horse-doctors.” One of the two Japanese, quite a young man, was the emperor’s body-physician; the other, somewhat older and better informed, was physician to one of the chief princes. Both were good-natured, acute, and lively. They attached themselves to Thunberg with great zeal, coming to see him every day, and often staying late at night. Though wearisome with their questions, yet so insinuating were they in their manners and anxious to learn, that our traveller found much pleasure in their society. They had a number of Dutch works on botany, medicine, and surgery, and Thunberg sold them some others. They were particularly struck with the fine set of surgical instruments which he had brought from Amsterdam and Paris. These medical friends were of great use to him in his studies in natural history. Among the botanical specimens which they brought him were the pine of Europe (Pinus abies), of which, as well as of the Pinus silvestris, he had seen several on his journey to court, the chestnut, which he saw afterwards at Miyako, on his return, and the walnut (Jugulans nigra). They also brought him a variety of ores and minerals, and specimens of fishes and insects.
Reeling
The Culture of the Worms
Scenes among the Silk Workers
The Japanese, he found, knew nothing of anatomy or physiology. They were ignorant of the circulation of the blood, feeling the pulse for a quarter of an hour, first in one arm and then in the other, not knowing that both beat alike. Bleeding they very seldom practised; of the use of mercury they knew nothing; and, notwithstanding what Thunberg relates of the cures effected under his direction, by the use of corrosive sublimate, it may be doubted how much benefit he conferred by the introduction of that remedy, or by the present which he made to his “beloved pupils” of “his silver-spring lancet,” with instructions how to use it.
The two great remedies of the Japanese are acupuncture and burning with the moxa [mogusa], the former chiefly practised in a violent colic endemic to the country. According to the Japanese theory, it is caused by wind, and to let out this wind several small holes—nine being a favorite number—are made with needles, prepared for the purpose, generally in the muscles of the stomach or abdomen, though other fleshy parts of the body are, in some cases, chosen for the operation. These needles are nearly as fine as a hair, made of gold and silver generally, but sometimes of steel, by persons who profess a particular skill in tempering them. The bony parts, nerves, and blood-vessels are carefully avoided, and while they are passed through the skin and muscle, they are twirled about in a peculiar manner. There are many practitioners who confine themselves to this practice alone.[55]
A still more favorite and universal remedy, employed quite as much for prevention as cure, is burning with the moxa [mogusa],—the finer woolly part of the young leaves of the wormwood (Artemisia), of which the coarser kind is used for ordinary tinder. It is procured by ribbing and beating the leaves till the green part separates and nothing remains but the wool, which is sorted into two kinds. When applied, it is made up in little cones, which, being placed on the part selected for the operation, are set fire to from the top. They burn very slowly, leaving a scar or blister on the skin, which, some time after, breaks and discharges. The operation is not very painful, except when repeated in the same place, as it sometimes is, or when applied to certain tender parts. It is thought very efficacious in pleurisies, toothache, gout, and rheumatism,—disorders which, like the colic above mentioned, are rapid in their operation, and of which the paroxysms tend to a speedy termination under any medical treatment or none at all. The Japanese have very elaborate treatises as to the effects produced by the moxa, according to the part to which it is applied, and its application forms a science and profession by itself. The fleshy parts, especially of the back, are ordinarily selected. It is used still more by way of prevention than for cure, every person, young and old, male and female, even prisoners in the jails, submitting to the operation at least once in six months[56]. Another remedy is friction, applied by certain professors, and which proves of great use in pains of the limbs, arising from the prevailing vicissitudes of the weather. Internal remedies are generally exhibited in the form of simple decoctions, diuretic or sudorific. Wonderful virtues are ascribed to certain drugs; and, on the whole, the Japanese appear, as in the use of unicorn’s horn and ginseng, to have been not less deluded by quack medicines and medical theories than more enlightened nations.[57]
The doctors, like the priests, are distinguished from other people by the fashion of wearing their hair. Thunberg states in one place that they shaved the whole head; in another, that they had the option of retaining all their hair, like the boys and women. According to Titsingh, physicians shave the head, and surgeons wear the hair. Of surgery, however, they know next to nothing.
All the male Japanese who are neither priests nor physicians, from the time the beard begins to grow, shave the head from the forehead to the nape of the neck. The little hair left about the neck and on the temples is well oiled, turned up in a cue, and tied with several rounds of white string made of paper. The hair above the tie is cut off, leaving about the length of a finger, which, being stiffened with a sort of pomatum, is so bent that the tip of it is made to stand against the crown of the head. This arrangement is strictly attended to, the head being shaved every day, that the stumps of the growing hair may not disfigure it.
Women who have parted with their husbands also shave their heads—at least Thunberg met with one such instance; but, in general, the women retain all their hair, which they make smooth with oil and mucilaginous substances, and either put close to the head all round, or else (in the case of single women and serving-maids) make it stand in puffs on each side of the face. The ends are fastened together in a knob at the crown of the head, just before which is stuck a large comb, made, in the case of the poorer people, of lackered boxwood, and among the richer of tortoise-shell. The rich wear also several long ornaments of tortoise-shell, stuck through this knob, which, with a few flowers, constitute the whole of their head decorations. “Vanity,” says Thunberg, “has not yet taken root among them to that degree as to induce them to wear rings or other ornaments in their ears. No caps, hats, or bonnets are worn, except a conical cap, made of reeds, when travelling. Otherwise the parasol or fan is all the shelter they use against the sun or the rain.”
The official visits are thus described by Thunberg: “We were dressed in the European fashion, but in costly silks, interwoven with silver and laced with gold. On account of the festivity of the day it was requisite for us to wear our swords and a very large black silk cloak. We were carried a considerable distance through the town before we arrived at the emperor’s residence. This is surrounded by fosses and stone walls, and separated by draw-bridges. It forms a considerable town of itself, and is said to be five leagues in circumference, comprising the emperor’s private palace, as also that of the hereditary prince, each separated from the other by wide fosses, stone walls, gates, and other bulwarks. In the outermost citadel, which was the largest of all, were large and handsome covered streets and great houses, which belonged to the princes of the country, the privy councillors, and other officers of state. Their numerous families, who were obliged likewise to remain at the court the whole year throughout, were also lodged here. At the first gate there was a strong guard. That at the second gate was said to consist of a thousand men.[58] As soon as we had passed through this gate, having previously quitted our norimono, we were conducted to an apartment, where we waited a full hour. At last, having obtained leave to approach the imperial palace, we passed through a long lane of soldiers, who were posted on both sides quite up to the door of the palace, all armed and well clothed.
“The emperor’s private palace was situated on an eminence, and although it consisted of one story only, still it was much higher than any other house, and covered a large tract of ground. We were immediately conducted into an antechamber, where we again waited at least an hour. Our officers sat down in the Japanese manner on one side, and the Dutchmen, together with the interpreters, on the other. It proved extremely fatiguing to us to sit in their manner; and, as we could not hold it out long thus, we put our legs out on one side and covered them with our long cloaks, which in this respect were of great service to us.
“The time we waited here did not appear long, as great numbers of people passed in and out, both in order to look at us and talk with us. We were visited by several princes of the country, but constantly incognito, though we could always perceive when they were coming, from the murmuring noise which was at first heard from the inner rooms, and the silence that ensued upon it. Their curiosity was carried to a great length in everything; but the chief employment they found for us was to let them see our mode of writing. We were thus induced to write something either on paper or on their fans. Some of them showed us fans on which the Dutch had formerly written, and which they had carefully treasured up as great rarities.
“At last the instant arrived when the ambassador was to have audience, at which the ceremony was totally different from that which was used in Kämpfer’s time, we remaining in the apartment into which we had been ushered.
“After the return of the ambassador we were again obliged to stay a long while in the antechamber, in order to receive the visits and answer the questions of several of the courtiers, several times during whose entrance a deep silence prevailed. Among these, it was said, his imperial majesty had likewise come incognito, in order to have a nearer view of the Dutch and their dress.[59] The interpreters and officers had spared no pains to find out, through the medium of their friends, everything that could tend to our information in this respect. The emperor was of a middle size, hale constitution, and about forty and odd years of age.
“At length, after all the visits were ended, we obtained leave to see several rooms in the palace, and also that in which the ambassador had had audience, and which has already been described.
“The ambassador was conducted by the outside of the anteroom and along a boarded passage to the audience-room, which opened by a sliding-door. The inner room consisted, in a manner, of three rooms, one a step higher than the other, and, according to the measure I took of them by my eye, when afterwards permitted to view them, of about ten paces each in length, so that the distance between the emperor and the ambassador might be about thirty paces. The emperor, as I was informed, stood during the audience, in the most interior part of the room, as did the hereditary prince likewise, at his right hand. To the right of this room was a large saloon, the floor of which was covered by a hundred mats, and hence called the hundred-mat saloon. It is six hundred feet long and three hundred broad,[60] and is occupied by the most dignified men of the empire, privy councillors, and princes, who all, on similar occasions, take their seats according to their different ranks and dignity. To the left, in the audience-room, lay the presents, sent beforehand, and piled up in heaps. The whole of the audience consists merely in this, that, as soon as the ambassador enters the room, he falls on his hands, lays his hand on the mat, and bows his head down to it, in the same manner as the Japanese themselves are used to testify their subjection and respect. After this the ambassador rises, and is conducted back to the anteroom the same way that he came.
“The rest of the rooms which we viewed had no furniture in them. The floors were covered with large and very white straw mats; the cornices and doors were handsomely lackered, and the locks, hinges, etc., well gilt.
“After having thus looked about us, we were conducted to the hereditary prince’s palace, which stood close by, and was separated only by a bridge. Here we were received and complimented in the name of the hereditary prince, who was not at home; after which we were conducted back to our norimono.
An Umbrella-Maker
A Charcoal Vender
Industrial Workers
“Although the day was already far advanced, and we had had sufficient time to digest our early breakfast, we were nevertheless obliged to pay visits to all the privy councillors, as well to the six ordinary as to the six extraordinary, at each of their respective houses. And as these gentlemen were not yet returned from court, we were received in the most polite manner by their deputies, and exhibited to the view of their ladies and children. Each visit lasted half an hour; and we were for the most part so placed in a large room that we could be viewed on all sides through thin curtains, without having the good fortune to get a sight of these court beauties, excepting at one place, where they made so free as not only to take away the curtain, but also desired us to advance nearer. In general we were received by two gentlemen in office, and at every place treated with green tea, the apparatus for smoking, and pastry, which was set before each of us, separately, on small tables. We drank sometimes a cup of the boiled tea, but did not touch the tobacco, and the pastry was taken home through the prudent care of our interpreters.
“I shall never forget the delightful prospect we had during these visits, from an eminence that commanded a view of the whole of this large and extensive town, which the Japanese affirm to be twenty-one leagues, or as many hours’ walk, in circumference. The evening drew nigh by the time that we returned, weary and worn out, to our inn.
“On the following day (May 19) we paid our respects to the temple lords, as they are called, the two governors of the town, and the two commissaries of strangers. A few days elapsed after this before we received our audience of leave. This was given, in a very summary manner, on the 23d following, and only before the lords in council appointed for this purpose. The intervening days were employed in receiving presents and preparing for our departure. At the audience of leave the gowns or Japanese dresses, intended as presents for the Dutch East India Company, were delivered. The presents destined for us were carried to our inns. Every ordinary privy councillor gives, the day after the audience of leave, ten gowns; every extraordinary privy councillor, six; every temple lord, five; and every commissary, and the governor of Nagasaki, two. Of these our banjoshu (the officers called by Kämpfer bugiō and deputy-bugiō,—the conductors of the journey) received two; the secretary and myself, two apiece; and the ambassador, four. The rest are packed up for the company’s account.”[61]
Of these gowns, the universal and almost only article of Japanese dress[62], Thunberg, in another place, gives the following account: “They are long and wide, and worn, one or more of them, by people of every age and condition in life. The rich have them of the finest silk, and the poor of cotton. The women wear them reaching down to their feet, and the women of quality frequently with a train. Those of the men come down to their heels; but travellers, together with soldiers and laboring people, either tuck them up or wear them so short that they only reach to their knees. The men generally have them made of plain silk of one color; but the silken stuffs worn by the women are flowered, sometimes in gold. In the summer they are either without any lining at all, or else with a thin lining only. In winter, by way of defence against the cold weather, they are quilted with cotton or silk wad. The men seldom wear many of them, but the women often from thirty to fifty or more, and all so thin that together they hardly weigh more than four or five pounds. The undermost serves for a shirt, and is therefore either white or bluish, and for the most part thin and transparent. All these gowns are fastened about the waist by a belt, which for the men is about the breadth of a hand, and for the women of twelve inches, and of such length as to go twice round the body, with a large knot and rose. The knot worn by the fair sex, which is larger than that worn by the men, shows immediately whether the woman is married or not; as the married women wear the knot before, and the single behind. The men fasten to this belt their sabres,[63] fan, tobacco pipe and pouch. The gowns are rounded off about the neck, without a cape, open before, and show the bare bosom, which is never covered, either with a handkerchief or anything else. The sleeves are ill-shaped, wide and long, the openings partly sewed up, so as to form a bag, into which they put their hands in cold weather, or use it as a pocket to hold their papers and other things.[64] Young girls, in particular, have the sleeves of their gowns so long as frequently to reach quite down to the ground. On account of the width of their garments, they are soon dressed and undressed, as they have nothing more to do than to untie their girdle and draw in their arms when the whole of their dress instantly falls off of itself. The gowns serve also for bedclothes. The common people, when at work, are frequently seen naked, with only a girdle about them, or with their gowns taken off the upper part of their bodies, and hanging down loose from their girdles. Men of a higher rank wear over the long gowns a shorter one, made of some thin stuff, such as gauze. As to the neck and sleeves of it, they are like those of the other, but it reaches only to the waist, and is not fastened with a girdle, but tied before and at the top with a string. This half-gown is sometimes of a yellow, but most frequently of a black color, and is laid aside at home, or in any place where no superior is present.”
As the Japanese ordinarily wear no covering for the legs, feet, or head, the above-described gowns constitute their entire dress, except upon occasions of ceremony, when a complimentary dress, or honor-gown, kamishimo as they call it, is added to it. This complimentary dress consists of a frock, generally of a blue stuff, with white flowers about half the length of the gown, and made much in the same way, but carried on each side back over the shoulders, so as to give a very broad-shouldered appearance to the wearer. To this, with persons of a certain rank, is added, as part of the dress of ceremony, a garment half breeches, half petticoat, as if it were a petticoat sewed up between the legs, but left open at the sides for two thirds their length, fastened about the waist by a band, and reaching to the ankles.
Before leaving Yedo, Thunberg purchased a number of botanical books, containing very indifferent figures of plants, as did another botanical work, in twenty thin octavo volumes, presented to him by one of his medical pupils. But a large printed[65] quarto, which he purchased, contained figures of Japanese fishes, engraved and colored in such superior style as to be able to compete with similar European works. He also procured, though the selling such things to strangers was strictly prohibited, a map of Japan, with plans of Yedo, Miyako, and Nagasaki, exactly like those brought away by Kämpfer, and engraved in his work. Just before his departure, at the request of his two pupils in medicine, he gave them a certificate in Dutch, of their proficiency, with which they were as highly delighted as ever a young doctor was with his diploma. A warm friendship had sprang up between him and them, and, even after Thunberg’s return to Europe, a correspondence was kept up and presents exchanged for some years, down at least to the publication of his travels.
According to Thunberg, the personages composing the imperial court were in his time so little known that very few people in the whole empire were acquainted with their names. M. Feith, the director whom he accompanied to Yedo, and who had been on the same embassy four times before, and had lived in Japan fourteen years, was obliged to confess at table, after their return to Batavia, being inquired of as to the name of the reigning emperor, that he did not know it, and never had heard it.[66] It was only through the friendship of his medical pupils at Yedo, and of the chief interpreter, that he obtained a knowledge of it, and also a list of the emperors since Kämpfer’s time, which he gives as follows:
1681, Tsunayoshi (reigning when Kämpfer left Japan, and for twelve or thirteen years previously).
1709, Iyenobu.
1713, Iyetsugu.
1716, Yoshimune.
1745, Iyeshige.
1760, Iyeharu,[67] who continued to reign at the time of Thunberg’s departure, being the forty-first in succession from Yoritomo, and ninth from Iyeyasu, otherwise Daifu-Sama, and Ōgosho-Sama, or, as he was called after his death, Gongen-Sama, by whom the reigning dynasty had been established.
Thunberg left Yedo on his return the 25th of May. The weather being rainy, they were a good deal molested by gnats, against which they had to protect themselves by gauze curtains. The Japanese fire-flies, so much more brilliant and active than the European glow-worm, were noticed with admiration.
At this season the first gathering was made of the tea-leaves, yet quite young and yielding the finer kinds of tea. He observed in some places the leaves carelessly spread before the houses on mats to dry. He also observed the farmers, in several places, threshing barley, wheat, and mustard seed on similar mats, with flails having three swingels, or sometimes by beating the ears against a tub. To separate the exterior husk from the rice, it was pounded by hand in a kind of mortar, or by means of a machine consisting of a number of pestles set in motion by a water-wheel, or by a man’s foot. After the wheat and barley were gathered, French beans (Phaseoli) were sown for a second crop. He observed many kinds of peas and beans cultivated, especially the Dolichos soia, not only used for making soy, but the chief ingredients of a soup, a daily dish with most classes. The Dolichos polystachos, which ran winding like scarlet beans, was employed for arbors. Its flowers, hanging down from long stalks, were very ornamental, and appeared in succession for a long period. He mentions, also, lettuce, melons both with red and white pulp, pumpkins, cucumbers, eaten both raw and pickled, gourds, employed for flasks, mushrooms, very much used, especially for soups and sauces, Seville and China oranges, lemons, shaddocks, medlars (Mespillus japonica), a large sort of persimmon (Dyosperos kaki), grapes, pomegranates, Spanish figs (Cactus ficus), chestnuts, and walnuts.[68] The condition of the Japanese farmer Thunberg contrasts very favorably with that of the Swedish agriculturalist, overloaded as the latter was with feudal burdens, though doubtless he knew better these burdens, which he indignantly enumerates, than he did the grievances of the Japanese cultivator.
At Ōsaka he saw the smelting of copper from the ores obtained in that neighborhood, and the method of casting it into bars. A mould was made for this purpose, by digging a hole in the ground a foot deep, across which were laid ten square iron bars, barely a finger’s breadth apart. A strip of sail-cloth was spread over these bars and forced down. The hole was then filled with water, and the melted metal, smelted from the ore, was dipped up in iron ladles and poured into this mould, thus forming each time ten or eleven thin plates. To this method of casting he ascribes its high color.
Thunberg had an opportunity of seeing Japanese plays, both at Ōsaka, on his return from Miyako, and at Nagasaki, during the annual Matsuri in honor of Suwa, which he attended. “The spectators,” he says, “sit in houses of different dimensions, on benches. Facing them, upon an elevated but small and narrow place, stands the theatre itself, upon which seldom more than one or two actors perform at a time. These are always dressed in a very singular manner, according as their own taste and fancy suggest, insomuch that a stranger would be apt to believe that they exhibited themselves not to entertain, but to frighten, the audience. Their gestures as well as their dress are strangely uncouth and extravagant, and consist in artificial contortions of the body, which it must have cost them much trouble to learn and perform. In general they represent some heroic exploit, or love story, of their idols and heroes, which are frequently composed in verse, and are sometimes accompanied with music. A curtain may, it is true, be let fall between the actors and the spectators, and some necessary pieces be brought forward upon the theatre; but in other respects these small theatres have no machinery nor decorations which can entitle them to be put in comparison with those of Europe.
Interior View of a Typical Japanese House
“When the Japanese wish at any time to entertain the Dutch, either in the town of Nagasaki, or more particularly during their journey to the imperial court, they generally provide a band of female dancers, for the amusement of their guests. These are generally young damsels, very superbly dressed, whom they fetch from the inns; sometimes young boys likewise are mixed among them. Such a dance requires always a number of persons, who turn and twine, and put themselves into a variety of artificial postures, in order to represent an amorous or heroic deed, without either speaking or singing. Their steps are, however, regulated by the music which plays to them. These girls are provided with a number of very fine and light gowns, made of silk, which they slip off one after another, during the dance, from the upper part of their body, so as frequently to leave them, to the number of a dozen together, suspended from the girdle which encircles their loins.”
Though the view taken by Thunberg of the Japanese presents them perhaps not quite so high in the scale of civilization as Kämpfer’s, yet he is scarcely less their admirer, coinciding, indeed, in this respect, with most of the Europeans who have left any memorials of their observations in Japan. He notes especially their courtesy, friendly disposition, ingenuity, love of knowledge, justice, honesty, frugality, cleanliness, and self-respect; and he emphatically repudiates the conclusion that, because the laws are severe and strictly executed, the people are therefore to be regarded as slaves. These laws are for the public good, and their severity ensures their observance. “The Japanese,” he tells us, “hate and detest the inhuman traffic in slaves carried on by the Dutch, and the cruelty with which these poor creatures are treated.”
In common with Kämpfer he admires and extols the immutability of the Japanese laws and customs; but this seems hardly so legitimate a subject of eulogy as the peace in which the empire is kept, the plenty which is said to prevail,[69] and its freedom as well from internal feuds, political or religious, as from foreign encroachments.
Thunberg’s “Flora Japonica” describes about a thousand species, of which upwards of three hundred were new. In the preface to it he speaks of the Japanese Islands as chiefly hills and valleys, with high mountains. Plains and meadows are rare. The soil is now clayey and now sandy. The summer heat is great, especially in July and August, sometimes one hundred degrees of Fahrenheit, and scarcely tolerable but for the breeze. In winter the thermometer, even in the most southern parts, falls many degrees below the freezing-point, especially with the wind from the north and west, with ice and snow, which on the highest mountains remains all the year round. The changes in the weather are great and sudden; violent storms with thunder and lightning are common. The rains are abundant throughout the year, and especially so in spring and summer, whence in part the fertility of Japan, mainly due, however, to careful cultivation.