Japan and the Japanese

DUTCH TRADE. 245
but noi e from Spain and Manilla, under pain of incurring their
utmost displeasure; pepper; sugar, in powder and candied ; cloves ;
nutmegs ; camphor, from Borneo and Sumatra; quicksilver; cinnabar
; saffron ; lead ; saltpetre ; borax ; alum ; musk ; gum ben-
zoin ; gum lac ; rosmal, or sLorax liquida ; catechu, commonly called
Terra ; Japonica fustic; corals; amber; right antimony (which
they use to color their china ware) ; looking-glasses, which they cut
up to make spy -glasses, magnifying glasses, and spectacles, out of
them. Other things of less note are snakewood ; mangoes, and
other unripe East India fruits, pickled with Turkish pepper, garlic,
and vinegar; black lead and red pencils; sublimate of mercury (but
no calomel) ; fine files needles ; ; spectacles ; large drinking-glasses
of the finest sort ; counterfeit corals ; strange birds, and other
foreign curiosities, both natural and artificial. Some of these are
often sold in private, by sailors and others, without being produced
upon the Kambang, and in this case the Dutch make no scruple to
get as much for them beyond their real value as possibly they can.
" Of all the imported goods, raw silk is the best liked, though it
yields the least profit of any. All sorts of stuffs and cloths yield a
considerable and sure profit, and should there be never so much
imported, the consumption in so populous a country would be still
greater. Brazil wood and hides are also to be disposed of to very
good advantage. The most profitable commodities are sugar,
catechu, storax liquida, camphor ofBorneo (which they covet above
all other sorts), looking-glasses, &c., but only when they have occa-
sion for them, and when the Chinese have imported in small quantities.
Corals and amber are two of the most valuable commodities
in these eastern parts but ; Japan hath been so thoroughly provided
by smugglers, that at present there is scarce fifty per cent, to be
got upon them, whereas formerly we could sell them, ten, nay, a
hundred times dearer. The price of these things, and of all natural
and artificial curiosities, varies very much, according to the number
and disposition of the buyers, who may be sure to get cent percent,
clear profit by them, at what price soever they buy them."
" The yearly sum to the value of which the Dutch are permitted
to sell goods imported by them is. by Japanese reckoning, three
hundred chests of silver, each of a thousand taels, or in gold fifty
thousand kobangs; the highest value of the kobang, as current in
21*