Japan and the Japanese

298 JAPAN. A. D. 1690 1C92.
to behold at a distance. There is commonly a place withoi t the
castle designed lor a rendezvous and review of troops. Hence it
appears, that, considering wars are carried on in this country without
the use of great guns,
these castles are well enough defended,
and of sufficient strength to hold out a long siege. The proprietors
are bound to take particular
care that they be kept in constant
repair. However, if there be any part thereof going to ruin, the
same cannot be rebuilt without the knowledge and express leave of
the emperor. Much less doth the emperor suffer new ones to be
built in any part of his dominions. The castles whore the princes
or lords reside are commonly seated at the extremity of some large
town, which encompasses them in the form of a half-moon.*
"Most of the towns are very populous, and well built. The
streets are generally speaking regular, running straight forward,
and crossing each other at right angles, as if they had been laid
out at one time, and according to one general ground-plot. The
towns are not surrounded with walls and ditches. The two chief
gates, where people go in and out, are no better than the ordinary
gates which stand at the end of every street, and arc shut at night.
Sometimes there is part of a wall built contiguous to them on
each side, merely for ornament's sake. In larger towns, where
some prince resides, these two gates are a little handsomer, and
kept in better repair, and there is commonly a strong gu;ird
mounted, all out of respect for the residing prince. The rest of
the town generally lies open to the fields, and is but seldom enclosed
even with a common hedge, or ditch. In our journey to court, I
counted thirty-three towns and residences of princes of the empire,
some whereof we passed through, but saw others only at a distance.
Common towns and large villages or boroughs, on our road, I
computed at from seventy-seven to eighty or upwards.!
" I could not help admiring the great number of shops we met
with in all the cities, towns and villages ; whole streets being scarce
anything else but continued rows of shops on both sides, and I own,
for ray part, that I could not well conceive how the whole country
* In a Japanese map brought home by Kampfer the number of castles in
the whole empire is set down at a hundred and forty-six.
t The whole number of towns in the empire, great and small, is set dows
in the above mentioned map at more than thirteen thousand.