Japan and the Japanese

JAPAN. A. D. 1775 177G.
game described by Kampfer. Hitherto it had been usual to allow
the captains of the vessels to pass at pleasure to and from their
ships without being searched; they, with the directors of the Dutch
factory, being the only persons exempt from that ceremony. The
captains had taken advantage of this exemption to dress themselves
out, for the convenience of smuggling, in a showy, blue silk, silver-
laced coat, made very wide and large,
in which dress they generally
made three trips a day to and from Desima, being often so loaded
down with goods that they had to be supported by a sailor under
each arm. Thunberg's captain rigged
himself out in the same
style ; but, much to his disappointment and that of the other
Dutchmen, whose private goods the captains hud been accustomed
to smuggle for a commission, the Japanese officers who boarded the
ship brought orders that the captain should dress like the rest ;
that
he and the director also should be searched when they landed, and
that the captain should either stop on board, or, if he landed,
should remain on shore, being allowed to visit the ship only twice
during her "
stay. It was droll "
enough," gays Thuuberg, to see
the astonishment which the sudden reduction in the size of our bulky
captain excited in the major part of the ignorant Japanese, who
before had always imagined that all our captains were actually as
fat and lusty as they appeared to be."
In the year 177-, one of the Dutch ships from Batavia, disabled
in a violent storm, had been abandoned by her crew, who, in their
haste, or believing that she would speedily sink, had neglected the
standing order of the Company, in such cases, to set her on fire.
Some days after she drifted to the Japanese shore, and was towed
into the harbor of Nagasaki, when the Japanese found on board a
number of chests marked with the names of the principal Dutch
officers, and full of prohibited goods, and it was to this discovery
that the new order was ascribed.
The examination of the clothes and persons of all who passed to
and from the ship was very strict. The large chests were emptied,
and the sides, top and bottom, sounded to sec if they were not hol-
low. Beds were ripped open and the feathers turned over. Iron
Spikes were thrust into the butter-tubs and jars of sweetmeats. A
square hole was cut in the cheeses, and a thick, pointed wire thrust
through them i- every direction. Even some of the eggs brought