“Miyako is the great magazine of all Japanese manufactures and commodities, and the chief mercantile town in the empire. There is scarce a house in this large capital where there is not something made or sold. Here they refine copper, coin money, print books, weave the richest stuffs, with gold and silver flowers. The best and scarcest dyes, the most artful carvings, all sorts of musical instruments, pictures, japanned cabinets, all sorts of things wrought in gold and other metals, particularly in steel, as the best tempered blades, and other arms, are made here in the utmost perfection, as are, also, the richest dresses, and after the best fashion, all sorts of toys, puppets, moving their heads of themselves, and, in short, there is nothing can be thought of but what may be found at Miyako, and nothing, though never so neatly wrought, can be imported from abroad, but what some artist or other in this capital will undertake to imitate it. Considering this, it is no wonder that the manufactures of Miyako are become so famous throughout the empire as to be easily preferred to all others (though, perhaps, inferior in some particulars), only because they have the name of being made there. There are but few houses in all the chief streets where there is not something to be sold, and, for my part, I could not help admiring whence they can have customers enough for such an immense quantity of goods. ’Tis true, indeed, there is scarce anybody passes through but what buys something or other of the manufactures of this city, either for his own use, or for presents to be made to his friends and relations.
An Archer
“The lord chief justice resides at Miyako, a man of great power and authority, as having the supreme command, under the emperor, of all the bugiō, governors, stewards, and other officers, who are any ways concerned in the government of the imperial cities, crown lands and tenements, in all the western provinces of the empire. Even the western princes themselves must, in some measure, depend on him, and have a great regard to his person as a mediator and compounder of quarrels and difficulties that may arise between them. Nobody is suffered to pass through Arai and Hakone, two of the most important passes, and, in a manner, the keys of the imperial capital and court, without a passport, signed by his hand.
“The political government and regulation of the streets is the same at Miyako as it is at Ōsaka and Nagasaki. The number of inhabitants of Miyako, in the year of our visit, will appear by the following Aratame[18] (exclusive, however, of those who live in the castle and at the Dairi’s court).”
| Negi (persons attending the Shintō temples) | 9,003 |
| Yamabushi (mountain priests) | 6,073 |
| Shukke (ecclesiastics of the Buddhist religion) | 37,093 |
| Buddhist laymen, of four principal and eight inferior sects or observances[19] | 477,557 |
| Tera (Buddhist temples) | 3,893 |
| Miya (Shintō temples) | 2,127 |
| Shokoku Daimyō Yashiki (palaces and houses of the princes and lords of the empire) | 137 |
| Machi (streets) | 1,858 |
| Ken (houses) | 138,979 |
| Hashi (bridges) | 87 |
CHAPTER XXXVI
Lake Ōtsu—Mount Hiei[zan]—Japanese Legends—A Japanese Patent Medicine—Kwannon—Miya—Arai—Policy of the Emperors—Kakegawa—A Town on Fire—Suruga—Kunō—Passage of a Rapid River—Fuji-no-jama, or Mount Fuji—Crossing the Peninsula of Izu—Second Searching Place—Purgatory Lake—Odawara—Coast of the Bay of Yedo—A Live Saint—Kanagawa—Shinagawa—Yedo—Imperial Castles and Palace.
Kämpfer and his company left Miyako Friday, March 2, and, after a journey of eight or nine miles, during which they saw a high mountain towards the south, covered with snow, they reached Ōtsu, a town of a thousand houses, where they lodged. This town lies at the southwestern extremity of the large fresh-water lake of the same name, already mentioned.[20]
On the southeastern shore of this lake, which abounds with fish and fowl, lies the famous mountain Hieizan (by interpretation Fair-hill), covered with Buddhist monasteries, and near it were seen other mountains, covered with snow, and extending along the lake shore. Shortly after leaving Ōtsu, the Yodogawa, one of the outlets of the lake, was crossed upon a bridge, supported at the extremities by stone columns, of which the following legend is told. These columns were in old times possessed by an evil spirit, which very much molested travellers, as well as the inhabitants of the village. It happened one day that the famous saint and apostle, Kōshi,[21] travelling that way, all the people of the neighborhood earnestly entreated him to deliver them by his miraculous power from this insufferable evil, and to cast this devil out of the columns. The Japanese, a people superstitious to excess, expected that he would use a good many prayers and ceremonies, but found, to their utmost surprise, that he only took off the dirty cloth which he wore about his waist, and tied it about the column. Perceiving how much they were amazed, Kōshi addressed them in these words: “Friends,” said he, “it is in vain you expect that I should make use of many ceremonies. Ceremonies will never cast out devils; faith must do it, and it is only by faith that I perform miracles.” “A remarkable saying,” exclaims Kämpfer, “in the mouth of a heathen teacher!”