Japan and the Japanese

DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 405
berg'fe disappointment, very little chance to botanize. Animals
were little used in
agriculture. Only such of the rice fields
as lay low, and quite under water, were ploughed by oxen cows
being kept for draft and breeding only, and never milked. Thft
only wheel carriages seen were a few carts, and these only in and
about Miako, some with three wheels,* one before the other two,
and soms two-wheeled. These carts were long and narrow, the
wheels, some with spokes and fellies, but without any tire, except a
rope tied about them, and others of a solid piece, sawed from a log.
They were drawn by an ox, by cows, or a buffalo. Horses were
chiefly for the use of their princes, though occasionally employed
by others for travelling and carrying burdens. They were not
numerous, but Thunberg seems to make rather a close estimate in
saying that all Japan has scarcely as many horses as a single
province of Sweden. There was no occasion for meadows or pastures,
the cattle and horses being fed at home all the year, so that
all the land, not too steep or rocky for cultivation, was devoted to
the raising of crops ; nor did the fields require fences. All the
manure of the animals kept was carefully preserved, old men and
children following the horses of travellers, with a shell fastened to
the end of a stick, and a basket in which to put what they collected.
Of course the small number of domestic animals made it the more
necessary to resort to the other means of providing manure already
noticed.
A few swine were to be seen, but only in the neighborhood of
Nagasaki. There were no sheep nor goats. A supply of these
animals, and also of cattle and hogs, for the Dutch at Desima, was
brought annually from Batavia. Dogs, " the only idlers in the
country," were kept from superstitious motives, and cats were the
general favorites of the women. Hens and ducks were kept about
the houses, chiefly for their eggs, of which the Japanese make great
use, boiled hard and chopped into small pieces.
* Kampfer had noticed similar three-wheeled carts, made yery low, and
employed in drawing stone from a quarry. In unloading, the single wheel
was taken off, when the cart formed an inclined plain.