[Footnote 13: The old king sent 200 tayes, worth five shillings each, to Captain Saris, for his expences in the journey.--Purch.]
In two days we rowed from Firando to Facata. When eight or ten leagues short of the straits of Xemina-seque,[14] we came to a great town, where there lay in a dock a junk of 800 or 1000 tons burden, all sheathed with iron,[15] and having a guard appointed to keep her from being set on fire or otherwise destroyed. She was built in a very homely fashion, much like the descriptions we have of Noah's ark; and the natives told us she served to transport troops to any of the islands in case of rebellion or war.
[Footnote 14: The editor of Astley's Collection has altered the orthography of this name to Shemina seki. In modern maps, we find a town named Sunono sequi, on one side of these straits, which divide the island of Kiusiu from the south-west end of the great island of Niphon.--E.]
[Footnote 15: It is not a little singular, that metallic sheathing should have been observed by English mariners in Japan so long ago as 1613, and yet never attempted in the British or any other European navy till more than 150 years afterwards, and then brought forwards as a new invention.--E.]
We met with nothing extraordinary after passing through the straits of Xemina-seque till we came to Osaka, where we arrived on the 27th of August. Our galley could not get nearer the town than six miles; wherefore we were met by a smaller vessel, in which came the goodman or host of the house where we were to lodge in Osaka, and who brought with him a banquet of wine and salt fruits to entertain me. A rope being made fast to the mast-head of our boat, she was drawn forwards by men, as our west country barges are at London. We found Osaka a very large town, as large as London within the walls, having many very high and handsome timber bridges which serve to cross the river Jodo, which is as wide as the Thames at London. Some of the houses here were handsome, but not many. It is one of the chiefest sea-ports in all Japan, and has a castle of great size and strength, with very deep ditches all round, crossed by drawbridges, and its gates plated with iron. This castle is all of freestone, strengthened by bulwarks and battlements, having loop-holes for small arms and arrows, and various passages for throwing down stones upon the assailants. The walls are at least six or seven yards thick, all built of freestone throughout, having no packing with trumpery within, as I was told, but all solid. The stones are large and of excellent quality, and are so exactly cut to fit the places where they are laid, that no mortar is used, only a little earth being occasionally thrown in to fill up any void spaces.
In the castle of Osaka, when I was there, dwelt the son of Tiquasama, who was the true heir of Japan; but being an infant at the death of his father, he was left under the guardianship of four chiefs or great men, of whom Ogoshosama, the present emperor, was the principal. The other three guardians were each desirous of acquiring the sovereignty, and being opposed by Ogoshosama, levied armies against him; but Ogoshosama defeated them in battle, in which two of them were slain, and the other saved himself by flight. After this great victory, Ogoshosama attempted what he is said not to have thought of before. Seizing the true heir of the throne, he married the young prince to his own daughter, and confined them in the castle of Osaka, under the charge of such persons only as had been brought up from their childhood under the roof of the usurper, so that by their means he has regular intelligence of every thing they do.
Right opposite to Osaka, on the other side of the river Jodo, there is another town called Sakay, not so large as Osaka, but of considerable extent, and having great trade to all the neighbouring country. Having left samples and lists of prices of all our commodities with our host at Osaka, we departed from that place on the night of the 29th of August in a bark, and arrived at Fusima next night, where we found a garrison of 3000 men, maintained there by the emperor, to keep Miaco and Osaka under subjection. This garrison is shifted every third year, and the relief took place while we were there, so that we saw the old bands march away and the new enter, which they did in a most soldier-like manner. They marched five abreast, and to every ten files or fifty men there was a captain, who kept his men in excellent order. Their shot marched first, being calivers, for they have no muskets and will not use any, then followed pikes, next swords or cattans and targets, these were followed by bows and arrows, and then a band armed with weapons called waggadashes, resembling Welsh hooks: These were succeeded by calivers, and so on as before; but without any ensigns or colours; neither had they any drums or other warlike instruments of music. The first file of the band armed with cattans had silver scabbards, and the last file which marched next the captain had their scabbards of gold. The companies or bands were of various numbers, some 500, some 300, and some only of 150 men. In the middle of every band there were three horses very richly caparisoned, their saddles being covered by costly furs, or velvet, or stammel broad-cloths. Every horse was attended by three slaves, who led them in silken halters, and their eyes were hoodwinked by means of leathern covers.
After each troop or band, the captain followed on horseback, his bed and all his necessaries being laid upon his own horse equally poised on both sides, and over all was spread a covering of red felt of China, on the top of which sat the captain crosslegged, like a huckster between two paniers. Such as were old or weak in the back had a staff artificially fixed on the pannel, on which he could lean back and rest himself as if sitting in a choir. We met the captain-general of this new garrison two days after meeting his first band, having in the mean time met several of these bands in the course of our journey, some a league, and others two leagues from each other. The general travelled in great state, much beyond the other bands, yet the second band had their arms much more richly decorated than the first, and the third than the second, and so every successive band more sumptuous than another. The captain-general hunted and hawked all the way, having his own hounds and hawks along with him, the hawks being hooded and lured as ours in England. The horses that accompanied him for his own riding were six in number, and were all richly caparisoned. These horses were not tall, but of the size of our middling nags, short and well knit, small-headed, and very mettlesome, and in my opinion far excelling the Spanish jennet in spirit and action. His palanquin was carried before him, being lined with crimson velvet, and having six bearers, two and two to carry at a time.
Such excellent order was taken for the passing and providing of these soldiers, that no person either inhabiting or travelling in the road by which they passed and lodged, was in any way injured by them, but all of them were as cheerfully entertained as any other guests, because they paid for what they had as regularly as any other travellers. Every town and village on the way being well provided with cooks-shops and victualling houses, where they could get every thing they had a mind for, and diet themselves at any sum they pleased, between the value of an English penny and two shillings. The most generally used article of food in Japan is rice of different qualities, as with our wheats and other kinds of grain, the whitest being reckoned the best, and is used instead of bread, to which they add fresh or salted fish, some pickled herbs, beans, radishes, and other roots, salted or pickled; wild-fowl, such as duck, mallard, teal, geese, pheasants, partridges, quails, and various others, powdered or put up in pickle. They have great abundance of poultry, as likewise of red and fallow deer, with wild boars, hares, goats, and kine. They have plenty of cheese, but have no butter, and use no milk, because they consider it to be of the nature of blood.
They have great abundance of swine. Their wheat is all of the red kind, and is as good as ours in England, and they plough both with oxen and horses, as we do. During our residence in Japan, we bought the best hens and pheasants at three-pence each, large fat pigs for twelve-pence, a fat hog for five shillings, a good ox, like our Welsh runts, at sixteen shillings, a goat for three shillings, and rice for a halfpenny the pound. The ordinary drink of the common people is water, which they drink warm with their meat, holding it to be a sovereign remedy against worms in the maw. They have no other drink but what is distilled from rice, as strong as our brandy, like Canary wine in colour, and not dear: Yet, after drawing off the best and strongest, they still wring out a smaller drink, which serves the poorer people who cannot reach the stronger.