Japan and the Japanese

RECEPTION AT THE INNS. 831
agement, permitted to .make the journey again the next year.
Otherwise they stand excluded for two years.
" As soon as we have taken possession of our apartment, in
comes the landlord with some of his chief male domestics,
each with a dish of tea in his hand, which they present to every
one of us with a low bow, according to his rank and dignity,
and repeating, with a submissive, deep-fetched voice, the words,
ah! ah! ah! They are all clad in their garments of ceremony,
which they wear only upon great occasions, and have each a
short scymetar stuck in his
girdle, which they never quit,
so long as the company stays in the house. This done, the
necessary apparatus for smoking is brought in, consisting
of a
board of wood or brass, though not always of the same structure,
upon which are placed a small fire-pan with coals, a pot to spit in,
a small box filled with tobacco cut small, and some long pipes with
small brass heads; as also another japanned board, or dish, with
Socano,* that is, something to eat, as, for instance, several sorts of
fruits, figs, nuts, several sorts of cakes, chiefly mansie and rice
cakes hot, several sorts of roots boiled in water, sweetmeats, and
other trumperies of this kind. All these things are brought first
into the Bugio's room, then into ours. As to other necessaries
travellers may have occasion for, they are generally, in the case of
native travellers, served by the housemaids. These wenches also
wait at table, taking that opportunity to engage their guests to
further favors. But it is quite otherwise with us; for even the
landlords themselves and their male domestics, after they have pre-
sented us with a dish of tea, as above said, are not suffered upon
any account whatever to enter our apartments ; but whatever we
want it is the sole business of our own servants to provide us with.
" TLere are no other spitting-pots brought into the room but that
which comes along with the tobacco. If there be occasion for
more they make use of small pieces of bamboo, a hand broad and
high, sawed from between the joints
and hollowed. The can-
dles brought in at night are hollow in the middle ; the wick, which
is of paper, being wound about a wooden stick before the tallow is
* Froez, in one of his letters, defines this Japanese word, ns signifying a
kind of salted vegetable, like olives. It seems to include all kiuds of refresh-
ments occasionally offered, to visitors.