[162] These zeni were of various values, a thousand of them being worth, according to Caron, from eight to twenty-six mas, that is, from a dollar to three dollars and a quarter; the zeni varying, therefore, from a mill to three mills and a quarter. Of the existing copper coinage we shall speak hereafter. See vol. ii, p. 309.
[163] “Though it may sound extraordinary to talk of a soldier with a fan, yet the use of that article is so general in Japan that no respectable man is to be seen without one. These fans are a foot long, and sometimes serve for parasols; at others instead of memorandum books. They are adorned with paintings of landscapes, birds, flowers, or ingenious sentences. The etiquette to be observed in regard to the fan requires profound study and close attention.”—Titsingh. “At feasts and ceremonies the fan is always stuck in the girdle, on the left hand, behind the sabre, with the handle downward.”—Thunberg. [See paper on “Japanese Fans,” in vol. ii of the Transactions and Proceedings of the Japan Society, London.—Edr.]
[164] This is exclusive of the central tract or imperial domain (consisting of five provinces), and also of the two island provinces of Iki and Tsushima. [See also Note A in the Appendix.—Edr.]
[165] For a part of the distance across Kiūshiū (or Shimo), different routes were taken in the first and second of Kämpfer’s journeys. In the first he crossed the gulf of Ōmura; in the second, the gulf of Shimabara, these two gulfs enclosing the peninsula of Ōmura, the one on the north, the other on the east.
[166] The distance is reckoned by the Japanese at three hundred and thirty-two to three hundred and thirty-three leagues; but these Japanese leagues are of unequal length, varying from eighteen thousand to about thirteen thousand feet, and the water-leagues generally shorter than those by land in the proportion of five to three. Kämpfer makes the whole distance two hundred German or about eight hundred English miles.
[167] Three or four inches thick (according to Thunberg), and made of rushes and rice straw.
[168] Japanese feet, that is, for, according to Klaproth (“Annales des Emp. du Japon”) page 404, note, the ken is equal to seven feet four inches and a half, Rhineland (which does not differ much from our English) measure.
[169] These windows are of light frames, which may be taken out, and put in, and slid behind each other at pleasure, divided into parallelograms like our panes of glass, and covered with paper. Glass windows are unknown.
[170] Thunberg says, “tiles of a singular make, very thick and heavy.”
[171] In a Japanese map brought home by Kämpfer the number of castles in the whole empire is set down at a hundred and forty-six.