528 TRADE AND COMMERCE. 



amber, calumbak,^ Lignum colubnnum,^ gum lac, sapan-wood, 

 saltpetre, borax, alum, ivory, narwhal tusks (of Monodon mono- 

 ceros, L.), buffalo horns, ray-skin, corals, tortoise-shell, glass, glass- 

 eyes, files, nails, bar-iron, lead, tin, quicksilver. 



The silk came from China, Tonquin, Siam, Bengal and Persia ; 

 sapan-wood, buffalo horns, and ray-skins (shark-skins), stag and 

 buffalo skins were brought from Siam and Cambodia ; pepper and 

 sugar from India and Persia ; most of the spices from India and 

 the Moluccas ; Cordovan or Spanish leather, from India and Persia ; 

 the Baros camphor from Sumatra. 



Besides the company's trade, the captain and crew were per- 

 mitted to exchange saffron, licorice-root, rattan, glass-eyes, looking- 

 glasses, clocks, tusks, and certain other articles. And through the 

 crew various rarities came into the land, such as living parrots, 

 trained monkeys, shells, etc. 



As the most notable export articles, Thunberg mentions copper 

 and camphor, and then, secondarily, lacquer-wares, porcelain, silk 

 cloths, rice, sake and soy. This last was more highly prized than 

 the Chinese. It was carried to Batavia, the East Indies and 

 Europe. On the other hand, porcelain (the Tsubo or covered jars 

 are here mostly meant) was in Thunberg's opinion far behind that 

 of China in beauty, being thick, awkward and not well-painted. 

 The shining sticks of copper, of the thickness of a finger, were 

 packed in chests, each holding one Pikul, or 60 kg. Each ship 

 carried off 6-7,000 of these chests. 



4. Japan in the Commerce of the World. 



The commercial monopoly of the Dutch had gradually lost most 

 of its former significance for the parties concerned, being now as 

 much out of date as was the governmental system of the Shoguns 

 of the Tokugawa house, a dynasty founded on terror. It only 

 needed an energetic impulse from without to put an end to both 

 and effect a thorough change in the state of things. The United 

 States expedition under Commodore Perry, in 1854, brought this 

 impulse. It was the yeast which set the educated class of the 

 Japanese nation fermenting from one end to the other of their long 

 string of islands — a fermentation which culminated in the downfall 

 of the Shogunate and the re-establishment of the Mikado's power 

 in 1868. How this restoration came to pass, and what struggles 

 and rectifications the new rule had to experience before it could be 

 considered to be the firm basis of a new era in commercial and 

 social life, was narrated in detail in pp. 339-382 of vol. i. It only 



1 Calumbak, Columbac, or Columbak is said to be a corruption of the word 

 Colombo. The name was given to the aromatic eagle-wood {Aqinlai'ta 

 Agallocha^ Roxb. ; vide note, p. 526). 



'^ Snake-wood (Strychnos colubrina^ L.). 



