DAILY ABLUTIONS. 101 



excellent purpose for a single day, though made simply of 

 rice-straw. 



Japanese shoe-blacking and Japanese soap are extensively 

 advertised for sale in this country ; but the Japanese language 

 contains no name for either : both are unknown quantities in 

 old Jap-an. Liebig once said that the amount of soap used 

 by any people might be taken as an index of their civiliza- 

 tion ; but he knew nothing of Japan. How could a people 

 without soap-grease invent soap? The universal detergent 

 in Dai Nippon is hot water ; and, if this will not start the 

 dirt, and sand cannot be applied to aid it, the virtues of alkali 

 from wood-ashes are well known and employed in a practical 

 way. The Japanese are scrupulously clean in their persons 

 and dwellings. They have a saying, that, when the houses 

 of a nation are kept clean, you may be certain that the gov- 

 ernment is respected, and will endure. According to their 

 history, their government is the most permanent in the world, 

 having continued under one and the same dynasty for 2538 

 years ; the present emperor Mutsuhito being the hundred 

 and twenty-third ruler descended in a direct line from Jimmu 

 Tenno, the first mikado. Cleanliness with them, as with u^, . 

 is akin to godliness. There cannot be found in any other 

 country so frequently and thoroughly washed a people as 

 the Japanese. Every man, woman, and child is expected 

 to be soaked in hot water every day so long as life lasts. 

 They are, however, in this business of bathing as in every 

 thing else, very economical, and compel a small quantity of 

 water to cleanse many skins. In the cities and villages pub- 

 lic baths exist, where hundreds of persons of all ranks, ages, 

 and conditions, and of both sexes, plunge into the same tank, 

 until the hot water reminds a Yankee observer of the water 

 in a wash-tub in which a week's washing for a large family 

 has been done. They adopt, however, the same method for 

 obviating the objection to this course that is used by the 

 washer-women ; namely, to rinse the washed articles in clean 

 water, which is furnished in a small tub to each person on 

 emerging from the common tank. 



Though the Japanese have bred neat-cattle in small num- 

 bers from the earliest times, they have not been accustomed 

 to milk their cows, nor to eat beef, veal, butter, or cheese. 

 Those persons who killed and skinned animals, and made 



