Japan and the Japanese

COURTESANS. 325
" Nor must I forget to take notice of the numberless wenches
the great and small inns and the tea-booths and cook-shops in
villages and hamlets are furnished withal. About noon, when they
have done dressing and painting themselves, they make their appearance,
standing under the door of the house, or sitting upon the
small gallery around it, whence, with a smiling countenance and good
to call in at their
words, they invite the travelling troops that pass by
inn, preferably to others. In some places, where there are several
inns standing near one another, they make, with their chattering and
rattling, no inconsiderable noise, and prove not a little troublesome.
" I cannot forbear mentioning in this place a small mistake of
Mr. Caron, in his account of Japan, where he shows so tender a
regard for the honor of the Japanese sex (perhaps out of respect to
his lady, who was a Japan woman) as to assert that, except in the
privileged houses devoted to it, this trade is not elsewhere carried
on. It is unquestionably true that there is hardly a public inn
upon the great island Nipon, but what is provided with courtesans,
and if too many customers resort to one place, the neighboring inn-
keepers will lend their wenches, on condition that what money they
get shall be faithfully paid them. Nor is it a new custom come
up but lately, or since Mr. Caron's time. On the it contrary, is
of very old date, and took its rise, as the Japanese say, many hun-
dred years ago, in the times of that brave general and first secular
monarch, Joritomo, who, apprehensive lest his soldiers, weary of
his long and tedious expeditions, and desirous to return home to
their wives and children, should desert his army, thought it much
more advisable to indulge them iu this particular."
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