Japan and the Japanese

166 JAPAN. A. D. 1C11 1C13.
plopped to dine. The town seemed as large ns Ijotidon within tho
walls, very well built, with straight streets. As they landed, they
had experience, related almost wherever they went, of that antiptthy
to foreigners, so characteristic a trait of the country ; for
the boy*, children, nnd worser sort of idle people, would gather
ibout them, crying out Corf', Care, Cocorc, Ware, taunting them
by these words as Coreans with false hearts, whooping, hollowing,
and making such a noise, that tho English could hardly hear each
other speak, and even in some places throwing stones at them all
which went on without any interference on the part of the public
officers. In general, however, the police was very strict, and punishments
very prompt and bloody. Saris saw several executions in the
streets, after which, every passer-by was allowed to try
his sword on
the dead bodies, which thus are chopped into small pieces, and
left for the birds of prey to devour. All along the coast they
noticed many families living in boats upon the water, as in Holland,
the women being very expert fishers, not only with lines and nets,
but by diving, which gave them, however, blood-shot eyes.
Coasting through the Strait of Sinomosiqui and the channel
which separates Nipoa from the two more southern islands, on the
twentieth day after leaving Firundo they reached the entrance of
a river, a short distance up which lay the town of Osaka, which,
however, they could only reach in a small boat. This town, which
Bccmed as large as Faceata, had many handsome timber bridges
across a river as wide as the Thames at London. It had, also, a
great and very strong castle of freestone, in which, as they were
told, the son of the late emperor, left an infant at his father's
decease, was kept a close prisoner. Some nine miles from Osaka,
on the other side of the river, lay the town of Sakai, not so large,
but accessible to ships, and a place of great trade.
Leaving their galley at Osaka, Captain Saris and his company
passed in boats up a river or canal, one day's journey, to Fusinii,
where they found a garrison of three thousand soldiers, maintained
by the emperor to keep in subjection Osaka, and the still larger
neighboring city of Miako. The garrison being changed at that
time, the old
troops marching out, and new ones marching in, a
good opportunity was afforded to see their array. They were
armed with a species of fir-arms, pikes, swords and targets, bows