Japan and the Japanese

CHAPTER VI.
CIVILIZATION OF THE JAPANESE. ANIMALS. AGRICULTURE. ARTS.
HOUSES. SHIPS. LITERATURE. JURISPRUDENCE. CHARACTER OF TUB
JAPANESE. THEIR CUSTOM OF CUTTING THEMSELVES OPEN. A. D. 1550.
THE doctrine of the transmigration of souls, one of the most dis-
tinguishing tenets of the Buddhist faith, had not failed to confirm the
Japanese in a distaste for animal food, which had originated, perhaps,
from the small number of animals natives of that insular
country, an abstinence, indeed, which even the ancient religion
of Sinto had countenanced by denouncing as impure the act of
killing any animal, or being sprinkled with the slightest drop of
blood. Of domestic tame animals, the Japanese possessed from
time immemorial the horse, the ox, the buffalo, the dog, and the cat :
but none of these were ever used as food. The Portuguese intro-
duced the sheep and the goat ; but the Japanese, not eating their
flesh nor understanding the art of working up their wool or hair,
took no pains to multiply them. The Chinese introduced the hog ;
but the eating of that animal was confined to them and to other
foreigners. The deer, the hare and the wild boar, were eaten by
some sects, and some wild birds by the poorer classes. The fox
was hunted for its skin, the hair of which was employed for the
pencils used in painting and writing. The animal itself, owing to
its roguery, was believed to be the residence of particularly wicked
souls an idea confirmed by many strange stories in common circu-
lation. The tortoise and the crane were regarded in some sort as
sacred animals, never to be killed nor injured. Whales of a small
species were taken, then as now, near the coast, and were used as
food, as were many other kinds of fish, the produce of the sea and
rivers. Shell-fish and certain sea-weeds were also eaten in largo
quantities.
The soil of Japan, being of volcanic origin, was in some places