Japan and the Japanese

422 JAPAN. A. D. 1775177;.
the melted metal, smelted from the ore, was dipped up in iron ladles
and poured into this mould, thus forming each time ten or eleven
thin plates. To this method of casting he ascribes its high colo*.
Thunberg had an opportunity of seeing Japanese plays, both at
Osaka, on his return from Miako, and at Nagasaki, during the annual
Matsuri in honor of Siwa, which he attended.
" The spectators,"
he "
says, sit in houses of different dimensions, on benches.
Facing them, upon an elevated but small and narrow place, stands
the theatre itself, upon which seldom more than one or two actors
perform at a time. These are always dressed in a very singular manner,
according as their own taste and fancy suggest, insomuch that
a stranger would be apt to believe that they exhibited themselves
not to entertain, but to frighten, the audience. Their gestures as
well as their dress are strangely uncouth and extravagant, and
consist in artificial contortions of the body, which it must have cost
them much trouble to learn and perform. In general they repre-
sent some heroic exploit, or love story, of their idols and heroes,
which are frequently composed in verse, and are sometimes accom-
panied with music. A curtain may, it is true, be let fall between
the actors and the spectators, and some necessary pieces be brought
forward upon the theatre but in other ;
respects these small theatres
have no machinery nor decorations which can entitle them to be put
in comparison with those of Europe.
" When the Japanese wish at any time to entertain the Dutch,
either in the town of Nagasaki, or more particularly during their
journey to the imperial court, they generally provide a band of
female dancers, for the amusement of their
guests. These are gen-
erally young damsels, very superbly dressed, whom they fetch from
the inns ; sometimes young boys likewise are mixed among them.
Such a dance requires always a number of persons, who turn and
twine, and put themselves into a variety of artificial postures, in
order to represent an amorous or heroic deed, without either speaking
or singing. Their steps are, however, regulated by the music
which plays to them. These girls are provided with a number of
very fine and light gowns, made of silk, which they slip off one
after another, during the dance, from the upper part of their body,
so as frequently to leave them, to the number of a dozen together,
Suspended from the girdle which encircles their loins."