Within, the floor was paved with square flags of freestone,—a thing not seen elsewhere. There were many small, narrow doors running up to the first roof, but the interior, on account of its great height, the whole up to the second roof forming but one room, was very badly lighted. Nothing was to be seen within except an immense idol, sitting (not after the Japanese, but after the Indian manner, with the legs crossed before it) on a terete flower, supported by another flower, of which the leaves were turned upwards, the two being raised about twelve feet from the floor. The idol, which was gilt all over, had long ears, curled hair, a crown on the head, which appeared through the window over the first roof, with a large spot not gilt on the forehead. The shoulders, so broad as to reach from one pillar to another, a distance of thirty feet, were naked. The breast and body were covered with a loose piece of drapery. It held the right hand up, the left rested edgewise on the belly.
The Kwannon temple was a structure very long in proportion to its breadth. In the midst was a gigantic image of Kwannon, with thirty-six arms. Sixteen black images, bigger than life, stood round it, and on each side two rows of gilt idols with twenty arms each. On either side of the temple, running from end to end, were ten platforms rising like steps one behind the other, on each of which stood fifty images of Kwannon, as large as life,—a thousand in all, each on its separate pedestal, so arranged as to stand in rows of five, one behind the other, and all visible at the same time, each with its twenty hands. On the hands and heads of all these are placed smaller idols, to the number of forty or more; so that the whole number, thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, according to the estimate of the Japanese, does not appear exaggerated.
Klaproth[33] gives some curious details as to these temples, derived from a Japanese Guide Book, such as is sold to visitants. The dimensions of the temple and of the image of Daibutsu, or the great Buddha, are given with great minuteness. The body is seventy-seven feet five and one-fourth inches high (Rhineland measure), and the entire statue with the lotus, eighty-nine feet eight and three-fourths inches. The head of the colossus protrudes through the roof of the saloon.[34]
At a little distance is a chapel called Mimitsuka, or “tomb of ears,” in which are buried the ears and noses of the Coreans who fell in the war carried on against them by Taikō-Sama, who had them salted and conveyed to Japan. The grand portico of the external wall of the temple is called Ni-ō-mon, “gate of the two kings.” On entering this vast portico, which is eighty-three and one-half feet high, on each side appears a colossal figure twenty-two feet in height, representing the two celestial kings, Aōn and Jugo, the usual porters at the Buddhist temples. Another edifice placed before the apartment of the great Buddha, contains the largest bell known in the world. It is seventeen feet two and one-half inches high, and weighs one million seven hundred thousand Japanese pounds (katties), equal to two million sixty-six thousand pounds English. Its weight is consequently five times greater than the great bell at Moscow. If this is the same bell described by Kämpfer, here is a remarkable discrepancy.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Further Decline of the Dutch Trade—Degradation of the Japanese Coins—The Dutch threaten to withdraw from Japan—Restrictions on the Chinese Trade—Probable Cause of the Policy adopted by the Japanese—Drain of the Precious Metals—New Basis upon which Future Trade must be arranged.
Notwithstanding the lamentations uttered by Kämpfer in the name of the Dutch factors, the trade to Japan had by no means in his time reached its lowest level, and it was subjected soon after his departure to new and more stringent limitations.
In the year 1696 appeared a new kind of koban. The old koban was twenty carats eight and a half, and even ten, grains fine; that is, supposing it divided into twenty-four parts, twenty parts and a half were fine gold.[35] The new koban was thirteen carats six or seven grains fine, containing, consequently, only two-thirds as much gold as the old one, and yet the Dutch were required to receive it at the same rate of sixty-eight mas of silver.
The old koban had returned on the coast of Coromandel a profit of twenty-five per cent, the new produced a loss of fifteen or sixteen per cent; but some of the old koban being still paid over at the same rate as the new, some profits continued to be derived from the gold, till, in 1710, the Japanese made a still more serious change in their coin, by reducing the weight of the koban nearly one-half, from forty-seven kanderins (two hundred and seventy-four grains) to twenty-five kanderins (one hundred and forty-six grains), which, as the Dutch were still obliged to receive these new koban at the rate of sixty-eight mas, caused a loss of from thirty-four to thirty-six per cent. From this time the old koban passed as double koban, being reckoned at twice their former weight. The koban of the coinage of 1730 were about five per cent better than the preceding ones; but the Dutch trade continued rapidly to decline, especially after the exportation of copper was limited, in 1714, to fifteen thousand chests, or piculs, and, in 1721, to ten thousand piculs annually. From this time, two ships sufficed for the Dutch trade.
For thirty years previous to 1743, the annual gross profits on the Japanese trade had amounted to five hundred thousand florins (two hundred thousand dollars), and some years to six hundred thousand (two hundred and forty thousand dollars); but in 1743 they sunk below two hundred thousand florins (eighty thousand dollars), which was the annual cost of maintaining the establishment at Deshima.