Japan and the Japanese

BILLS OF FARE. 375
We had scarce seated ourselves, when seven servants, well clad,
canie in, and brought us pipes and tobacco, with the usual apparatus
for smoking. Soon after, they brought in something baked, laid on
japanned trays, then some fish fried, all after the same manner, by
the same number of servants, and always but one piece in a small
dish; then a couple of eggs, one baked, the other boiled and shelled,
and a
_ glass of old, strong saki standing between them. -After this
manner we were entertained for about an hour and a half, when
they desired us to sing a song and to dance ; the first we refused,
but satisfied them as to the last. In the house of the first commis-
sioner's a drink made of sweet plums was offered us instead of saki.
In the second commissioner's house we were presented first of all
with mange bread,* in a brown liquor, cold, with some mustard-
seed and radishes laid about the dish, and at last with some orange-
peels with sugar, which is a dish given only upon extraordinary
occasions, in token of fortune and good will. We then drank some
tea, and having taken our leave, went back to our inn, where we
arrived at five in the evening."
[The following bills of fare are given in Kiimpfer's account of his
second visit to Jedo : "At the first commissioner's: 1. Tea. 2.
Tobacco, with the whole set of instruments for smoking. 3. Philo-
sophical or white syrup; 4. A piece of stienbrassen, a very scarce
fish, boiled in a brown sauce. 5. Another dish offish, dressed with
bran-flower and spices.
6. Cakes of eggs rolled together. 7. Fried
fish, presented on skewers of bamboo. 8. Lemon-peels with sugar.
" After every one of these dishes they made us drink a dish of
saki, as good as ever I tasted. We were likewise presented twice, in
dram cups, with wine made of plums, a very pleasant and agreeable
liquor. Last of all, we were again presented with a cup of tea.
" At the second commissioner's we were treated, after tea and
tobacco, with the following things : 1. Two long slices of mange,
dipped into a brown sop or sauce, with some ginger.
2. Hard
eggs. 3. Four common fish fried and brought in on bamboo skewers.
4. The stomachs of carps, salt, in a brown sauce. 5. Two
* This is what Kampfer calls, in another place, Mansies, and describes as
a sort of round cakes, which the Japanese had learned to make of the Portuguese,
as big as a common hen's egg, and sometimes filled within with beanflour
and sugar.