MATTHEW C. PERRY. 375 



manufactured. It is likewise the centre of litera- 

 ture and science, and most of the works which are 

 published and read in Japan issue from its presses. 

 Although there is here no longer the means of sup- 

 porting the same display of pomp and wealth as at 

 Jeddo, jet there is a greater exhibition of architec- 

 tural ornament. The palace, or enclosed city, of the 

 spiritual sovereign is on a similar plan; but the 

 religious structures, though built of cedar, are some 

 of them truly splendid, being richly gilded, and 

 placed in the most picturesque and commanding 

 situations. Ksempfer calculates that there are, in 

 and around Meaco, not less than three thousand 

 eight hundred and ninety-three temples, served by 

 thirty-seven thousand and ninety-three suikku, or 

 priests. Of these temples however, the greater part 

 are only wooden huts, and have nothing within but 

 a looking-glass and some cut white paper. The 

 secular inhabitants of the city, according to the last 

 enumeration, were 477,000, and the ecclesiastical, 







including the court, 52,000 ; making a sum-total of 

 five hundred and twenty-nine thousand. Japan is 

 divided into eight provinces and sixty-eight de- 

 partments. These are governed by the hereditary 

 princes of the Empire, though frequent changes are 

 made according to the weight of merit and favor, 



