Japan and the Japanese

358 JAPAN. A. D. 1091.
The Dutch company lodged at Kanayawa, a town of six hundred
houses, twenty-four miles from the capital. The coast of the bay
appeared at low water to be of a soft clay, furnishing abundance of
shell-fish and of certain sea-weeds, which were gathered and pre-
pared for food. The road the next day (Tuesday, March 13),
still hugging the shore, led on through a fruitful and populous dis-
trict, in which were several fishing villages, the bay abounding with
fish. As they approached Sinajawa, they passed a place of public
execution, offering a show of human heads and bodies, some half
patrifieJ and others half devoured dogs, ravens, crows and other
ravenous beasts and birds, uniting to satisfy their appetites on these
miserabb remains.*
Sinat/a,wa, immediately adjoining Jedo, of which it forms a sort
of outer suburb, consisted of one long, irregular street, with the bay
on the right, and a hill on the left, on which stood some temples.
Some few narrow streets and lanes turned off from the great one
towards these temples, some of which were very spacious buildings,
and all pleasantly seated, adorned within with gilt idols, and with-
out with large carved images, curious gates, and staircases of
stone leading up to them. One of them was remarkable for a
magnificent tower, four stories
high.
"
Though the Japanese," says
Kiitnpfer, " spare no trouble nor expense 'to adorn and beautify their
temples, yet the best fall far short of that loftiness, symmetry and
stateliness, which is observable in some of our European churches."
Having ridden upwards of two miles through Sinagawa, they
stopped at a small inn, pleasantly seated on the sea-side, from
which they had a full view of the city and harbor of Jedo, crowded
-with many hundred ships and boats of all sizes and shapes. The
smallest lay nearest the town, and the largest one or two leagues off,
not being able to go higher by reason of -the
shallowing of the
water.
" Our "
Bugio," says Kiimpfer, quitted his norimon here
and went on horseback, people of his extraction not being suffered
to enter the capital in a norimon. We travelled near a mile to the
end of the suburb of Sinagawa, and then entered the suburbs of
Jedo, whid i are only a continuation of the former, there being
* At the date of these travels, and indeed at a much later period, similar
exhibitions might have been seen in Europe.