[35] In one thousand parts, eight hundred and fifty-four were pure gold. The pure metal in our American coins is nine hundred parts in one thousand; or, in the old phraseology, they are twenty-one carats and twelve grains fine.
[36] Having been discovered by Sir Stamford Raffles among the public documents at Batavia, he published an abstract of it in the appendix B to his “History of Java.”
[37] Yet Pinto, whose knowledge of Japan preceded the time of Nobunaga, represents silver as very abundant there; and, indeed, it seems to have been this abundance which first attracted the Portuguese trade. On the whole, one does not derive a very high idea, from this tract, of the extent or correctness of the knowledge possessed by the Japanese of their own history, even the more recent periods of it.
[See Dr. Knox’s paper on Arai Hakuseki in vol. xxx of the “Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.”—Edr.]
[38] This was a considerable improvement upon the state of things in the time of Xavier, when every third vessel was expected to be lost. See p. 51.
[39] Kämpfer had seen the ginseng cultivated in gardens in Japan, but it was not supposed to possess the virtues of the Chinese article. Father Jontoux, one of the Jesuit missionaries in China, employed by the emperor in preparing a map of the region north of the great wall, had an opportunity to see the ginseng growing wild. He sent home, in 1711, a full account of it, with drawings (which may be found in “Voyages au Nord,” vol. iv), and suggested, from the similarity of the climate, that the same plant might be found in Canada, as it soon was by the Jesuit missionaries there.
[40] This sauce, used in great quantities in Japan, and exported to Batavia by the Dutch, whence it has become known throughout the East Indies and also in Europe, is made from the soy bean (Dolichos Soia), extensively used by the Japanese in the making of soup. The soy is prepared as follows: the beans are boiled till they become rather soft, when an equal quantity of pounded barley or wheat is added. These ingredients being mixed, the compound is set away for twenty-four hours in a warm place to ferment. An equal quantity of salt is then added, and twice and a half as much water. It is stirred several times a day for several days, and then stands well covered for two or three months, when the liquid portion is decanted, strained, and put in wooden casks. It is of a brown color, improves with age, but varies in quality, according to the province where it is made. The Dutch of Deshima cork up the better qualities in glass bottles, boiling the liquor first in an iron kettle, to prevent fermentation, by which it is liable to be spoiled.
[41] The murdering of the children may be explained by the following passage from one of the letters of Cocks, the English factor, written at Hirado, in December, 1614: “James Turner, the fiddling youth, left a wench with child here, but the w—e, the mother, killed it so soon as it was born, although I gave her two taels in plate (silver) before to nourish it, because she should not kill it, it being an ordinary thing here.”
[42] Cocks also had noticed their existence a century and a half earlier.
[43] This was doubtless the lexicon printed at Amakusa in 1595. See note, p. 158.