Japan and the Japanese

THUNBERG AT JEDO. 409
of the country. During the journey there had been ruin sometimes,
but not too often, and the cold had been such as occasionally to
make fires very comfortable. The Japanese, he observed, bore the
cold better than the rain, which did not altogether agree with their
bare feet and heads. For the feet they used only slippers of rice
straw,* left at the door whenever they entered a house, consisting of
a sole, without upper leather or hind-piece (kept on by a thong, or
strap, held fast between the toes), and soon soaked and spoiled by the
rain, on which occasion, indeed, high wooden clogs were sometimes
substituted. Ordinarily, even while travelling, no covering for the
head was worn, but in hard rains they used an umbrella, a hat of
plaited grass, and a cloak of oil-paper, for which the poorer class
substituted a piece of straw matting, thrown over their backs.
The weather, during a stay of twenty-six days at Jedo, from
April 28th to May 25th, was often damp, almost every day cloudy,
with sometimes drizzling, and sometimes heavy, rain. Several
slight shocks of earthquake were felt. Several fires occurred, which
were soon extinguished. A great fire, during the Dutch visit of
1772, had burned from noon till eight at night, spreading over a vast
space, and making it necessary to remove the Dutch three times.
Down to the day of audience, which did not take place till the
18th of May, the Dutch were not suffered to go out. Numbers of
persons obtained, however, permission to visit them. The first who
called were five physicians and two astronomers, prompted espe-
cially by Thunberg's scientific reputation, which the interpreters
had noised abroad, and who were very inquisitive on various points
of science. The questions of the astronomers related principally
to eclipses, which it appeared they could not calculate to minutes,
and frequently not even to hours ;
but besides the difficulty of car-
rying on this conversation through interpreters, another arose, from
the fact that Thunberg's astronomy had grown a little rusty, and
that neither he nor the Japanese had any books to which they could
refer.
In matters of medicine, he felt more at home, especially as two
* Later accounts represent cloth or cotton stockings, or socks, as fre-
quently worn in cold weather, resembling mittens, in having a separate accommodation
for the great toe, so as to permit the introduction between that
and the others of the shoe-holding strap.
35