J "92. en "japan. - 299 



NOTICES CONCERNING JAPAN, 

 FROM THE WORKS OF MR THUNEERG, LATELY PUBLISHED AT 

 STOOliHOLM IN THE SWEDISH LANGUAGE. 



No civilized nation on the globe is so little knov.'n 1)\- 

 'Europeans as Japan. For about two centuries past all ?c • 

 cefs to it has been prohibited to Europeans. The Dutch arc 

 the only people who are permitted to trade thither from 

 this hemisphere, and they are' so strictly guarded as to have 

 no other intercourse with the natives but what is absolute- 

 ly necefsary for their commerce. They are permitted to 

 have one factory only, upon a small island called Degima, 

 which by Mr Thunberg's account is only six hundred 

 feet in length, and about t.vo hundred and eighty in breadth. 

 IS surrounded on all sides by a high . wall, having one 

 -ate only towards the city Nangasahi, and another tow-arc's 

 the port. The first is fliut every night, and carefully guard- 

 ed by Japanese soldiers even duriug the day, the other is 

 only opened to admit the merchandise to be landed when 

 it arrives, or to be put on board before the vefsels depart. On 

 pafsing the guard towards the city, every person, whetiier 

 native or Dutch, is searched carefully at going in and out j- 

 io jealous arc the Japanese, lest the Europeans, by their in. 

 trigues. as formerly, raiijjht endanger the public tranquillity^ 

 Mr Thunbcrg hiiving gone thitlier in a Dutch vcfsel, 

 was extremely desirous of getting information respectin r 

 the presi^nt state of that country ; and with great ditiicultv, 

 and bribes distributed with the most cautious secrecy, and 

 by the help of an old Portuguese and Japartese vocabulary 

 Le accidentally met witii, was enabled to pick, up so much 

 of the language as in some measure to understand it'. Ke, at 

 Lngth, by means of an affected ignorance and jimplicity of 

 Uiajir.er':, obtained perraiG ion t ulierborise a li' tie in the nei^k- 



