PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
479 
but, in each, the manners of both countries may be traced. Their CHAP, 
mode of salutation, their custom of putting to their foreheads any thing 
that is given to them, their paper pocket handkerchiefs, and some parts May, 
of their dress, are peculiarly Japanese. In other respects they resemble 
the Chinese. The hatchee-matchee, and the hair-pins are, I believe, 
confined to their own country, though smaller metal hair-pins are worn 
by the ladies of Japan*. On the whole they appear to be a more 
amiable people than either the Chinese or Japanese, though they are 
not without the vices natural to mankind, nor free from those which 
characterize the inhabitants of the above mentioned countries. They 
have all the politeness, affability, and ceremony of the Chinese, with more 
honesty and ingenuousness than is generally possessed by those people ; 
and they are less warlike, cruel, and obsequious than the Japanese, and 
perhaps less suspicious of foreigners than those people appear to be. In 
their intercourse with foreigners their conduct appears to be governed 
by the same artful policy as that of both China and Japan, and we found 
they would likewise sometimes condescend to assert an untruth to serve 
their purpose ; and so apparent was this deceitfulness that some among 
us were led to impute their extreme civility, and their generosity to 
strangers, to impure motives. They are exceedingly timorous and 
effeminate, so much so that I can fancy they would be induced to 
grant almost any thing they possess rather than go to war ; and, as 
one of my officers justly observes in his journal, had a party insisted 
upon entering the tow'n, they would probably have submitted in silence, 
treated them with the greatest politeness, and by some plausible pre- 
text have got rid of them as soon as they could. 
They appear to be peaceable and happy, and the lower orders to 
be as free from distress as those of any country that Ave know of ; 
though we met several men working in the fields who were in rags, 
and nearly naked. The most striking peculiarity of the people is the 
excessive politeness of even the lowest classes of inhabitants ; on no 
account would they willingly do any thing disagreeable to a stranger, 
and when compelled by higher authorities than themselves to pur- 
sue a certain line of conduct, they did it in the manner that was the 
♦ See Langsdorff’s Travels, vol. ii. 
