]52 
NUNNERIES. 
life, and are forbidden conversing with women.'" 
As among some other communities besides Korean, 
some of the priests ‘‘go a-begging,” but the greater 
number, a circumstance which is rare among any 
other communities, “ work for their living, or follow 
some trade.” They are haunted by some vague 
traditionary idea of the Tower of Babel, believing, 
says our old Dutchman, that “mankind originally 
only had one language, but that the design of 
building a tower to go up to heaven caused the 
confusion of tongues.” They have numerous con- 
vents or nunneries, where live societies of religious 
women, who are “all shorn, abstain from flesh, 
serve idols, and may not marry.” Kempfer, in his 
History of Japan, also mentions “a certain remark- 
able religious order of young girls called Birkuni, 
or nuns, which damsels,” he informs us, obtain their 
living by begging, and are, in his opinion, “the 
handsomest girls we saw in Ja|)an.” 
