28 [Assembly 



It takes a ship from a southern port the best part of a year to 

 make the voyage. There are but few good harbors known where 

 ships of large size may lie, and one is Nagasaki, the entry to 

 ■which is narrow, and of a dangerous and difficult passage. 



The country is populous beyond imagination. A chief travels 

 wit^ a retinue of 20,000 men, an inferior chief with 10,000, &c. 

 The highways are a continued row of villages, joined together 

 by time, forming streets a whole day's journey on horseback, in 

 length. 



The Japanese are bold, and have a perfect contempt for life; 

 when conquered by an enemy, and they find it impossible to be 

 revenged, they do not scruple to lay violent hands upon them- 

 selves. They are not wanting in proper arms. At a distance 

 they fight with arrows and guns ; when hand to hand they use 

 pikes and scimeters. Their scimeters are so sharp that one stroke 

 will cut a body in two ; they are not allowed to be exported un- 

 der pain of death. Water is their common drink. They go bare- 

 headed and bare-legged; they wear no shirts; they have no pil- 

 lows to lay their heads upon ; they sleep on the ground, laying 

 their heads on a piece of wood, depressed in the middle ; they 

 can pass whole nights without sleep, and suffer great hardships ; 

 they keep themselves nice, and their houses clean and neat. 

 There is a mixture in their blood of the fire and impetuosity of 

 ^ the Tartars, and the ferocity and calmness of the Chinese. 



One would naturally suppose that Japan must be an unhappy 

 country, from the fact that its inhabitants are kept as it were pri- 

 soners within the limits thereof, and denied all commerce and 

 communication with their neighbors ; a country also so much di- 

 vided, and split into so many numberless islands, Japan is a sin- 

 gular instance of nature's kindness in this respect. These islands 

 are, with regard to the empire, what different countries are with 

 regard to the globe ; differing in soil and situation, they produce 

 various necessaries of life. There is scarce a commodity that can 

 be desired but that is produced in some island in sufiicieut quan- 

 tity to supply the entire empire. They find gold in Osin, silver in 

 Bengo, copper in Atsingano, lead in Bungo, iron in Bitsju ; Tsiku- 



