Japan and the Japanese

898 JAPAN. A. D. 1775-1776.
convenient. Each norimon traveller had with him a bottle of red
wine, and another of Dutch ale, taken daily from the large stock
provided for the journey, and preferred by the Europeans to tea,
which they regarded as a "great relaxer of the stomach." Each
traveller had also an oblong lackered box, containing " a double
slice of bread arid butter." In order to support the dignity of the
Dutch East India Company, the bed equipage which they carried
with them consisting of coverlids, pillows, and mattresses, was cov-
ered with the richest open-work velvets and silks. Their retinue,
on horseback and on foot, was numerous and picturesque. They
were received everywhere with the honor and respect paid to the
princes of the land : and, besides, says Thunberg,
were so well
guarded " that no harm could befall us, and, at the same time, so
well attended that we had no more care upon our minds than a
sucking child ; the whole of our business consisting in eating and
drinking, or in reading or writing for our amusement, in sleeping,
dressing ourselves, and being carried about in our norimons."
At setting out, each of the three Dutchmen received from the
purveyor fifty taels, for their individual expenses. This was the
first Japanese money which Thunherg had seen, and this, with other
suras doled out to them from time to time, was chiefly spent in
presents to their attendants. The disbursement on this score, at
starting, amounted to ten taels each.
In the early part of their journey, they followed a somewhat
different road from Kiirapfer's, all the way by land, not crossing
either the bay of Omura, nor that of Sunal/ara. They passed, how-
ever, through Swota, as Kampfer had done, famous for its large
water-jars, arid visited the hot springs in that neighborhood, and
also Stinja, capital of the province of FISKN, remarkable for its
handsome women, its rice and its fine porcelain. The roads were
found such as Kiimpfer had described them. Proceeding onward,
still by Kiimpfer's route, they reached Kokura on the ninth of
March. The following description of Japanese houses corresponds
sufficiently well with that of Kiimpfer, while it gives a rat'ier more
" The houses
distinct, and somewhat le.-s flattering, idea of them.
are very roomy and commodious, and never more than two stories
at most twenty feet
high, of which the lower one is inhabited,
and the upper serves for lofts and garrets, and is seldom occupied