Japan and the Japanese

UNIVEBSAL POLITENESS. 333
he bows down his forehead almost quite to the ground, in token of
submission and gratitude, uttering with a deep voice the words
ah '. ah ! ah ! whereby in this country inferiors show their defer-
ence and respect to their superiors.
He then prepares to make the
same compliment to the other Dutchmen ; but our interpreters generally
excuse him this trouble, and make him return in the game
crawling posture. Every landlord hath two kobangs paid
him for
dinner, and three for supper and lodgings at night. For this
money he is to provide victuals enough for our whole train, the
horses, the men that look after them, and the porters, only excepted.
The same sum is paid to the landlords in the cities, where we stay
some days, as at Osaka, Miako and Jedo, namely, five kobangs a
day, without any further recompense. The reason of our being
kept so cheap, as to victuals and is
lodging, because this sum was
agreed on with our landlords a long while ago, when our train
was not yet so bulky as it now is.* It is a custom in this coun-
try, which we likewise observe, that guests, before they quit the
inn, order their servants to sweep the room they lodged in, not to
leave any dirt, or ungrateful dust, behind them.
" From this reasonable behavior of the landlords, the reader may
judge of the civility- of the whole nation in general, always excepting
our own officers and servants. I must own that, in the visits
we made or received in our journey, we found the same to be
greater than could be expected from the most civilized nations.
The behavior of the Japanese, from the meanest countryman up to
the greatest prince or lord, is such that the whole empire might be
called a school of civility and good manners. They have so much
sense and innate curiosity, that, if they were not absolutely denied a
free and open conversation and correspondence with foreigners, they
would receive them with the utmost kindness and pleasure. In
some towns and villages only we took notice that the young boys,
who are childish all over the world, would run after us, calling us
names, and cracking some malicious jests or other, levelled at the
Chinese, whom they take us to be. One of the most common, and
not much different from a like sort of a compliment which is com-
* The total expense of the entire journey, including the presents to the em-
peror and others, is estimated by Kampfer at twenty thousand rix dollars,
equivalent to about the same number of our dollars.