252 



EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



placed in little baskets with broad bottoms, 60 that they could not be overset, and tbe vertical 

 splints continued upward and were tied together at the top, so as to afford slats, in the manner 

 of a borse's manger ; tbey could stick in tbeir beads, in the scramble for their first breakfast, 

 but could not trample tbe food under their feet. I presume the young are transferred almost 

 immediately to the boats, as I did not see any which appeared more than a week old. 



At the back part of their room is a mud wall partition, with a door in the centre, and two 

 other walls running back at right-angles to it, dividing the back end of the building into 

 three small apartments : one for the furnaces of charcoal, &c, the middle one serves as entrance, 

 and the third is the apartment appropriated to the most delicate part of the process. This has 

 a board floor, raised about four feet from the ground, beneath which are placed the furnaces, if 

 necessary. The apartment itself was very dark and smothering — not much gas or smoke, but 

 bigh temperature. This apartment contained about ten barrels, lined with the flannel paper, 

 stratum super stratum, about three or four inches thick. In these barrels the process begins, 

 and continues till within two or three days of its termination, when they go to the shelves in 

 the front room. The barrels are almost filled with eggs, a sheet of paper being interposed 

 between each layer of about six inches, and the whole covered with three or four sheets of the 

 flannel paper, and a thick light lid, composed in part of the same material. 



The whole arrangement seems to be a most perfect protection from sudden changes of temper- 

 ature, and I am under the impression that the eggs are handled a great deal, as they opened 

 them without any hesitation, and even asked us if we would not like to invest capital in the 

 business, for which they offered to pay two per cent, a month, or a share of the profits, which 

 were certainly to be equivalent. 



JOSEPH WILSON. 



