Japan and the Japanese

150 JAPAN. A. D. 1C07 1618.
idea of the population of the country grew more and more exagger
ated. He insists that he did not pass a town of less population
and Miako, which he consid-
than one hundred and fifty thousand ;
ers the largest city in the world, he sets down at one million fivi
hundred thousand.* Situated upon a highly-cultivated plain, its walls
were ten leagues in circuit, as Don Ilodrifjo ascertained by riding
O O v O
round them on horseback. It took him an entire day. He enters
into a number of details about the Dairi and his court. He was
powerless, and lived in splendid poverty. The court of the governor
of Miako, who had six vice-governors under him, was scarcely less
splendid than that of the emperor. He told Don liodrigo
that this
city contained five thousand temples and more than fifty thousand
public women. He showed him a temple, the largest building he
had seen in Japan, containing statues of all the gods, and another in
which was an immense bronze statue, the size of which filled him
with astonishment.
" I ordered," he "
says, one of my people to
measure the thumb of the right hand ; but, although he was a person
of the ordinary size, he could not quite encircle it with both arms.
But the size of the statue is not its only merit; the feet, hands,
mouth, eyes, forehead, and other features, are as perfect and as
expressive as the most accomplished painter could make a portrait.
When I first visited this temple it was unfinished ; more than one
hundred thousand men were daily employed upon it. The devil
could not suggest to the emperor a surer expedient to get rid of his
immense wealth." t
The temple and tomb of Taiko-Sama, raised since his death to
the rank of the gods, is thus described by liodrigo, who deplores
the dedication of such an edifice to one whose " soul is in hell for
all eternity." The entrance was by an avenue paved with jasper
four hundred feet by three hundred. On each side, at equal dis-
tances, were posts of jasper, on which were placed lamps lighted at
* Descriptions of it will be found in chapters xxxvi. and XL., and also a
census taken in 1690.
t This iin:\^i2 was first set up in the year 1576, by the Emperor Taiko
The temple in which it was placed was destroyed by the great earthquake of
15%. The rebuilding was commenced in 1602. The colossus, however, was
seriously injured by another earthquake in 16G2, after which it was rneltec
down, and a substitute prepared of wood covered with gilt paper. For &
description of it see chapters xxxvin. and XL.