Japan and the Japanese

PROCLAMATION PLACES. 299
is able to furnish customers enough, only to make the
proprietors
get a livelihood, much less to enrich them.
" The villages along the highways in the great island Nipon,
have among their inhabitants but few farmers, the far greater part
being made up by people who resort there to get their livelihood
either by selling some odd things to travellers, or by servile daily
labor. Most of these villages
consist only of one long street, bor-
dering on each side of the highway, which is sometimes extended to
such a
length as almost to reach the next village.
" The houses of country people and husbandmen consist of four
low walls covered with a thatched or shingled roof. In the back
part of the house the floor is somewhat raised above the level of the
street, and there it is they place the hearth ; the rest is covered
with neat mats. Behind the street door hang rows of coarse
ropes made of straw, not to hinder people from coming in or going
out, but to serve instead of a lattice-window to prevent such as are
without from looking in and observing what passes within doors.
As to household goods they have but few. Many children and
great poverty is generally what they are possessed of; and yet
with some small provision of rice, plants and roots, they live content
and happy.
"Passing through- cities and villages and other inhabited places,
we always found, upon one of the chief public streets, a small place
encompassed with grates, for the supreme will, as the usual way of
speaking is in this country, that is, for the imperial
orders and
proclamations. The lord or governor of every province publishes
them in his own name for the instruction of passengers. They are
written, article by article, in large, fair characters, upon a square
table of a foot or two in length, standing upon a post at least twelve
feet high. We saw several of these tables, as we travelled along, of
different dates and upon different subjects. The chief, largest and
oldest, contain the edict against the Roman Catholic religion, setting
forth also proper orders relating to the image-trampling inquisition,
and specifying what reward is to be given to any person or persons
that discover a Christian or a priest. The lords or governors of provinces
put up their own orders and edicts in the same place. This
is the reason why there are sometimes so many standing behind or
near one another, that, it is scarce possible 4 o see and to read them