INTRODUCTION. 53 



come over to trade. The Chinese sailor lias a passion for pork. The hog thrives well and 

 becomes very fat in Japan. 



Horticulture. — In this department the Japanese are very skillful. They possess the art, in a 

 wonderful degree, either of dwarfing, or of unnaturally enlarging all natural productions. As 

 an evidence of the first, may be seen, in the miniature gardens of the towns, perfectly mature 

 trees, of various kinds, not more than three feet high, and with heads about three feet in 

 diameter. These dwarfed trees are often placed in flower pots. Fischer says that he saw In a 

 box four inches long, one and a half wide, and six in height, a bamboo, a fir, and a jjlum tree, 

 all thriving, and the latter in full blossom. As proofs of the last, Meylan tells us that he saw 

 plum trees covered with blossoms, each of which was four times the size of the cabbage rose ; it 

 produced no fruit, however. He also saw radishes weighing from fifty to sixty pounds ; and 

 those of fifteen pounds were not at all uncommon. The fir trees are represented as being forced 

 to an enormous size ; we are told that the branches, at the height of seven or eight feet from the 

 ground, are led out, sometimes over ponds, and supported upon props, so that they give a shade 

 around the tree three hundred feet in diameter. The cedar, also, is a tree which reaches a great 

 size. 



Navigation. — Formerly the Japanese made voyages, in vessels of their own construction, to 

 Corea, China, Java, Formosa, and other places at some distance from their own islands ; but 

 when the Portuguese were expelled a decree was made that the natives should not leave the 

 country ; bence navigation declined. Still, short coasting voyages are made witliin the bound- 

 aries of the Kingdom ; and fishing-smacks go to sea, but not very far from the coast. This 

 coasting trade, however, is large ; and the Japanese use fish for food so extensively that the 

 number is immense of these trading boats and fishing smacks. The Japanese have the compass ; 

 not divided, however, into as many points as ours. The construction of their vessels, as to 

 model, is very clumsy ; and, as they have seen and examined many European ships, it may 

 seem strange that a people so skilful and ingenious should not, ere this, have improved in naval 

 architecture. The fault is not theirs ; the fact is that they have, in more than one instance, 

 built very good vessels after European models ; but the law has interposed, for a special reason, 

 and retarded improvement among a people wbose insular position would have made them sailors, 

 and whose quick perceptions would have made them good ones if left to themselves. Their 

 craft are, by law, made with the stern open, so that they cannot weather an open and heavy sea. 

 The smaller ones never, if they can help it, go out of sight of laud, and upon any threatening 

 appearance of rough weather they instantly run in to make a harbor. The object of this law of 

 construction is to keep the natives at home. 



Internal trade hy land and icater. — This is large, resulting from the variety of produce aflbrded 

 by the variety of climate, and from the immense population. In many places, town joins on to 

 town, and village to village, for miles, so that the road looks like a continued street. Kajmpfer 

 thus speaks of the population: "The country is indeed populous beyond expression, and one 

 would scarcely think it possible that, being no greater than it is, it should, nevertheless, 

 maintain and support such a vast number of inhabitants. The highways are almost one con- 

 tinued line of villages and boroughs. You scarce come out of one, but you enter another ; and 

 you may travel many miles, as it were, in one street, without knowing it to be composed of 

 many villages, save by the diflering names that were formerly given them, and which tliey after 

 retained, though joined to one another. It hatli many towns, the chief whereof may, of a 



