difficult journey from Desima to Yedo in order to accompany 

 the Dutch Ambassador on his annual visit to the Court of the 

 " Emperor ; that the vocation of each was that of the physician 

 while botany was but an avocation. Each on his return to his 

 native land wrote long and informally of his impressions of Japan, 

 and these works are invaluable in that they picture the condi- 

 tions that obtained in Japan before her ports were opened to the 

 nations ; each also produced a botanical work of permanent 

 value — works that persist as corner-stones in the foundations of 

 Japanese botany. 



Westphalia and was educated at the universities of Cracow in 

 Poland and Konigsberg in Prussia. He spent much time in the 

 study of " Physick and the Natural Sciences " and so paved the 

 way for the useful observations and discoveries which he after- 

 wards made in his travels. From Prussia he went to Sweden, 

 where his scholarly attainments brought him into great repute at 

 the University of Upsala and advantageous offers were made to 

 him. This was a score of years before the birth of Linnaeus. 

 There is a tendency to forget that botany did not begin with 

 Linnaeus, who is often called the "father of modern botany." 

 He may be the " father," but if the ancestry should be followed 

 ' up, the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of modern botany 

 would form a most respectable family-tree. 



Kaempfer, however, preferred foreign travel and accepted an 

 appointment as secretary of the embassy which the Court of 

 Sweden was then sending to Persia. Three years later, the 

 negotiations with the Persian Court were concluded and Dr. 

 Kaempfer entered the service of the Dutch East India Company 

 as Chief Surgeon to the Fleet. After touching at various points 

 on the shores of Persia and Arabia, the coasts of Malabar, the 

 islands of Ceylon, Sumatra and Java, he arrived in Japan in the 



most delightfully told in the thousand pages of his History | 

 Japan. In these volumes there is the fascination that comes 

 from telling a thing for the first time when every detail is new, 

 and there is the added charm of the beautiful country with its 

 conservative and art-loving people. 



