Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER XLI.
ISAAC TITSINGH. HIS RESIDENCE IX JAPAN. TRANSLATIONS FROM TH1
JAPANESE. ANNALS OF TUE DAIRI. MEMOIRS OF TILE SIOGUN. LIBERAL
IDEAS IN JAPAN. MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. FUNERAL CEREMONIES. -
MOURNING. FEAST OF LANTERNS. A. D. 17791791.
Soox after Thunberg's departure, he had a worthy successor, in
the person of Mr. Isaac Titsingh, the first director at Desiina since
the time of Caron to whom we are indebted for any information
about Japan. Born about 1G40, Titsingh had entered early into
the service of the Dutch East India Company. After seven years'
residence at Batavia, he was sent to Desima, as director, where he
arrived August 15th, 1779, and remained till Xovember 29th, 1780,
when he returned to Batavia. lie came back again to Japan
August 12th, 1781, and remained till November Gth, 1783, the
war between Holland and England, growing out of the American
revolution, having prevented the arrival of any ships from Batavia
during the year 1782 an event of which Titsingh took
advantage to stipulate for a considerable advance in the price of
Dutch imports, for a term of fifteen years. He reached Nagasaki
a third time, August 18th, 1784, but left again November 26th of
the same year. During his first and second visits he made the
journey to Jedo as Dutch ambassador, where he succeeded in mak-
ing several friends, particularly Kutsuka Samo?i, prince of Tamba,
who had learned Dutch, which he wrote tolerably well, with whom,
and other Japanese friends, Titsingh kept up a correspondence for
some time after
leaving the country.
During his residence in Japan he made a valuable collection of
Japanese curiosities, including many Japanese books, and he also
brought home with him translations of some of these books, made
by aid of Japanese interpreters attached to the factory at Desima,.
Whose interpretations, given viva voce, he wrote out in Dutch ; foi