Japan and the Japanese

89fi JAPAN. A. D. 1.75-1776.
them. As the winter set in, the cold, with an easterly or northerly
wind, was quite piercing, and they had fires of charcoal in a
large
copper kettle with a broad rim. Placed in the middle of the room
it warmed the whole apartment for hours together. The looseness
of the doors and windows prevented any ill consequences from the
gases. As the residents all dined and supped at a common table,
kept at the Company's expense, their outlays did not amount to
much "
except," says Thunberg,
"
they squander away their
money on the fair sex, or make expensive
suppers to each other."
entertainments and give
The account which Thunberg gives of the Japanese mistresses
of the Dutch is very much the same with that given by Kiimpfer.
These women, when spoken for to an officer appointed for that
purpose, come attended by a little serving-maid,
one of the young
apprentices of the houses to which they belonged, who brought
daily from the town her mi>trcs.s' food, made her tea, kept her
things in order, and ran on errands. One of these female companions
could not be had for less than three days, but might be kept a
year, or even several years. The price was eight mas, or one dollar
a day, besides her maintenance and presents of silk dresses, girdles,
head-ornaments, &c. According to Thunberg, children were
very seldom born of these connections. lie was assured, but did
not credit it, that if such a thing happened, the child, if a boy,
would be murdered; and that, if a girl, it would be sent at fifteen
to Batavia ; but of this he knew of no instance. There was, in
his time, one girl about six years old, born of a Japanese mother,
living on the island with her father. Later accounts go to show
that Dutch Japanese children are by no means such rarities as
Thunberg represents.*
The women painted their lips with colors, made of the Catharinus
tinctorius, or bastard saffron, rubbed on little porcelain bowls. If
laid on very thin, the lips appeared red ; if thick, it gave them a
* The murdering of the children may be explained by the following pas-
sago from one of the letters of Cocks, the English factor, written at Firando,
in December, 1014 : " James Turner, the fiddling youth, left a wench with
child here, but the w e, the mother, killed it so soon as it was born,
although I gave her two taels in plate [silver] before to nourish it, because
she should not kill it, it being an ordinary thing here."