Japan and the Japanese

GOLOWXIN AT HAKODADE. 463
halted for the night an hour or two before sunset, usually in a village
\rith a small garrison. They were always conducted first to the
front of the house of the officer in command, and were seated on
benches covered with mats, when the officer came out to inspect
them. They were then taken to a neat house (which generally,
when they first entered, was hung round with striped cotton cloth),
and were placed together in one apartment, the ends of their ropes
being fastened to iron hooks in the walls. Their boots and stock-
ings were pulled off, and their feet bathed in warm water with salt
in it. For bedding they had the Japanese mattresses quilts with
a thick wadding folded double.
After the first six or seven days their bonds were loosened, and
they got on more comfortably. The Japanese took the greatest
care of their health, not allowing them to wet their feet, carrying
them across the shallowest streams, and furnishing them with
quilted Japanese gowns as a protection against the rain.
At Hakodade they were received by a
great crowd, among
which were several persons with silk dresses mounted
with rich
"
caparisons. Both sides of the road," says
on horses
Golownin,
" were crowded with spectators, yet every one behaved with the
utmost decorum. I particularly marked their countenances, and
never once observed a malicious look, or any sign of hatred tow-
ards us, and none showed the least disposition to insult us by mock-
ery or derision." He had observed the same thing in the villages
through which they had passed, where the prisoners had received,
as they did afterwards, from numerous individuals, many touching
instances of commiseration and sympathy.
At Hakodade they were confined in a prison, a high wooden
enclosure, or fence, surrounded by an earthen wall somewhat lower,
(and on their first approach to it hung with striped cloth),* inside
of which was a long, barn-like building. Within this
building were
a number of small apartments, scarcely six feet
square, formed of
thick spars, and exactly like cages, in which the prisoners were
* The fort on the island where they were taken prisoners, when first seen
from the ship, was hung round with striped cloths, which concealed the
walls. These cloths had embrasures painted on them, '>ut in so rough a
manner that the deception could be perceived at a considerable distance.