Japan and the Japanese

860 JAPAN. A. D. 1C01.
noon, having completed our journey from Nagasaki in twenty-nine
days.
Jedo, the residence of the emperor, the capital, and by much
the largest city of the empire, is seated in the province MCSASI, in
35 Sli' of northern latitude [according to Kiimpfer's observations],
on a large plain, at the head of a gulf, plentifully .stored with fish,
crabs, and other shell-fish, but so shallow, with a muddy clay at
the bottom, that no ships of bulk can come up to the city, but mast
be unladen a league or two below it.
" Towards the sea the city hath the figure of a half-nio< n, and
the Japanese will have it to be seven of their miles (about sixteen
English miles) long, five (twelve English) broad, and twenty (fifty
English) in circumference. It is not enclosed with a wall, no more
than other towns in Japan, but cut through by many broad canals,
with ramparts raised on both sides, and planted at the top with
rows of trees, not so much for defence as to prevent the fires
which happen here too frequently from making too great a
havoc.
" A large river, rising westward of the city, runs through it, and
loses itself in the harbor. It sends off a considerable arm, which
encompasses the castle, and thence falls into the harbor, in five
different streams, every one of which hath its particular name, and
a stately bridge over it. The chief, and most famous, of these
bridges, two hundred and fifty-two feet in length,
is called j\V-
ponbas, or the bridge of Japan, mention of which has already been
made, as the point from which distances are reckoned all over the
empire.
" Jedo is not built with that regularity which is observable in
most other cities in Japan (particularly Miako), and this because
it swelled by degrees to its present bulk. However, in some parts
the streets run regularly enough, cutting each other at right angles
a regularity entirely owing to accidents of fire, whereby some
hundred houses being laid in ashes at once, as, indeed, very fre-
quently happens, the new streets may be laid cut upon what plan
the builders
please." Many places, which have been thus destroyed
" The houses
by fire, were noticed by Kiimpfer still lying
waste.
arc small and low, built of fir wood, with thin clayed walls, divided
into rooms by paper screens and lattices, the floors covered with