Japan and the Japanese

NAGASAKI. 259
" The handsomest buildings belonging to townspeople are two
streets all occupied by courtesans. The girls in these establish-
ments, which abound throughout Japan, are purchased of tlieil
parents when very young. The price varies iu proportion to their
beauty and the number of years agreed for, which is, generally
speaking, ten or twenty, more or less. They are very commodiously
lodged in handsome apartments, and great care is taken to
teach them to dance, sing, play upon musical instruments, to write
letters, and in all other respects to make them as agreeable as pos-
sible. The older ones instruct the young ones, and these in their
turn serve the older ones as their waiting-maids.
Those who mnke
considerable improvement, and for their beauty and agreeable
behavior are oftener sent for, to the great advantage of their
masters, are also better accommodated in clothes and lodging, all at
the expense of their lovers, who must pay so much the dearer for
their favors. The price paid to their landlord or master is from
one mas to two itzubo (twelve and a half cents to four dollars), for
a night, beyond which they are forbid to ask under severe penalties.
One of the sorriest must watch the house over night in a
small room near the door, free to all comers upon the payment of
one mas. Others are sentenced to keep the watch by way of punishment
for their misbehavior.
" After having served their time, if they are married, they pass
among the common people for honest women, the
guilt of their
past lives being by no means laid to their charge, but to that of
their parents and relations who sold them in their infancy for so
scandalous a way of getting a livelihood, before they were able to
choose a more honest one. Besides, as they are generally well
bred, that makes it less difficult for them to get husbands. The
keepers of these houses, on the contrary, though possessed of never
so plentiful estates, are forever denied admittance into honest com-
pany."
Kiimpfer enumerates of public buildings three large wooden ship-
houses, in which are kept three imperial junks or men-of-war,
equipped and ready for launching ; a powder-magazine on a hill
opposite the town, and a
city prison. There are also sixty-two
temples, within and without the town five for the worship of the
i : or ancient national gods of Japan, seven of the Jamabos