The 19th of February, 1776, on which fell the beginning of the Japanese year, was celebrated according to the Japanese custom, all of them going visiting, dressed up in their holiday clothes, and wishing their neighbors joy; and, indeed, this interchange of congratulations is kept up, more or less, through the first month.
On the two last days of the year a general settlement of accounts takes place. Fresh credit is then given for six months, when a new settlement takes place. The rate of interest was high, ranging from eighteen to twenty per cent. Thunberg was told that, after new-year’s day, there was no right to demand settlement of the last year’s accounts.
Shortly after the Japanese new year, took place the trampling of images, which ceremony, according to the information obtained by Thunberg, was still performed by all the inhabitants of Nagasaki, exactly as in Kämpfer’s time.
On the 4th of March the director set out for the emperor’s court, accompanied, as usual, by the secretary of the factory, and by Thunberg as physician. In Kämpfer’s day these two latter persons had been obliged to make the journey on horseback, exposed to cold, rain, and all the inclemencies of the weather. Since then they had obtained the privilege of travelling in norimono, equally with the director. Dr. Thunberg seems to have been well satisfied with his vehicle, which he describes as both handsome and convenient. Each norimono traveller had with him a bottle of red wine, and another of Dutch ale, taken daily from the large stock provided for the journey, and preferred by the Europeans to tea, which they regarded as a “great relaxer of the stomach.” Each traveller had also an oblong lackered box, containing “a double slice of bread and butter.” In order to support the dignity of the Dutch East India Company, the bed equipage which they carried with them, consisting of coverlids, pillows, and mattresses, was covered with the richest open-work velvets and silks. Their retinue, on horseback and on foot, was numerous and picturesque. They were received everywhere with the honor and respect paid to the princes of the land; and, besides, says Thunberg, were so well guarded “that no harm could befall us, and, at the same time, so well attended that we had no more care upon our minds than a sucking child; the whole of our business consisting in eating and drinking, or in reading or writing for our amusement, in sleeping, dressing ourselves, and being carried about in our norimono.”
The Ear-Mound at Kyōtō
At setting out, each of the three Dutchmen received from the purveyor fifty taels, for their individual expenses. This was the first Japanese money which Thunberg had seen, and this, with other sums doled out to them from time to time, was chiefly spent in presents to their attendants. The disbursement on this score, at starting, amounted to ten taels each.
In the early part of their journey, they followed a somewhat different road from Kämpfer’s, all the way by land, not crossing either the bay of Ōmura, nor that of Shimabara. They passed, however, through Shiota, as Kämpfer had done, famous for its large water-jars, and visited the hot springs in that neighborhood, and also Saga, capital of the province of Hizen, remarkable for its handsome women, its rice and its fine porcelain. The roads were found such as Kämpfer had described them. Proceeding onward, still by Kämpfer’s route, they reached Kokura on the ninth of March. The following description of Japanese houses corresponds sufficiently well with that of Kämpfer, while it gives a rather more distinct, and somewhat less flattering, idea of them. “The houses are very roomy and commodious, and never more than two stories—at most twenty feet—high, of which the lower one is inhabited, and the upper serves for lofts and garrets, and is seldom occupied. The mode of building in this country is curious and peculiar. Every house occupies a great extent of ground, and is built in general of wood and plaster, and whitewashed on the outside so as to look exactly like stone. The beams all lie horizontal or stand perpendicular. Between these beams, which are square and far from thick, bamboos are interwoven, and the space filled up with clay, sand, and lime. The roofs are covered with tiles of a singular make, very thick and heavy. The more ordinary houses are covered with chips [shingles], on which are frequently laid heavy stones to secure them. In the villages and meaner towns I sometimes saw the sides of the houses, especially behind, covered with the bark of trees, which was secured by laths nailed on it to prevent the rain from damaging the wall.
“The whole house makes but one room, which can be divided according as it may be found necessary, or thought proper, into many smaller ones. This is done by moving slight partitions, consisting of wooden frames, pasted over with thick painted paper, which slide with great ease in grooves made in the beams of the floor and roof for that purpose. Such rooms were frequently partitioned off for us and our retinue, during our journey; and when a larger apartment was wanted for a dining-room, or any other purpose, the partitions were in an instant taken away. One could not see, indeed, what was done in the next room, but one frequently overheard the conversation that passed there.
“In each room there are two or more windows, which reach from the ceiling to within two feet of the floor. They consist of light frames which may be taken out, put in, and slid behind each other, at pleasure, in two grooves made for this purpose in the beams above and below them. They are divided by slender rods into panes of a parallelogrammatic form, sometimes to the number of forty, and pasted over on the outside with fine white paper, which is seldom if ever oiled, and admits a great deal of light, but prevents any one from seeing through it. The roof always projects a great way beyond the house, and sometimes has an addition which covers a small projecting gallery that stands before each window. From this little roof go slanting inwards and downwards several quadrangular frames, within which hang blinds made of rushes, which may be drawn up and let down, and serve not only to hinder people that pass by from looking into the house, but chiefly when it rains to prevent the paper windows from being damaged. There are no glass windows here; nor have I observed mother-of-pearl or muscovy talc (mica, or isinglass) used for this purpose.