Japan and the Japanese

68 JAPAX. A. D. 1530.
very fertile ; but in many parts there were rugged and inaccessible
mountains, the sides of which, not admitting the use of the plough
were built up in terraces cultivated by hand. Agriculture formed
the chief occupation of the inhabitants, and they had carried it to
considerable perfection, well understanding the use of composite
manures. The chief crops were rice, which was the great article
of food ; barley, for the horses and cattle ; wheat, used principally
for vermacellis ; and several kinds of peas and beans. They culti-
vated, also, a number of seeds, from which oils were expressed ;
likewise cotton, hemp, the white mulberry for the feeding
of silk-
'worms (silk being the stuff most in use), and the paper mulberry
for the manufacture of paper. To these may be added the camphortree,
which grew, however, only in the south-western parts of Ximo,
the Rhus vernix, which produces the celebrated Japanese varnish,
and the tea-plant, spoken of by one of the early Portuguese mission-
Caries as " a certain herb called Chia, of which they put as much as
a walnut shell may contain into a dish of porcelain, and drink it
with hot water." From rice they produced by fermentation an
intoxicating drink, called saki, which served them in the place of
wine, and which was consumed in large quantities. A yeast, or
rather vinegar, produced from this liquor, was largely employed in
the pickling of vegetables.
boo, the fir of several species, and the cedar.
Their most useful woods were the bam-
They understood in perfection the arts of weaving silks and
of moulding porcelain, and excelled in
gilding, engraving, and
especially in the use of lacquer or varnish. They also were able
to manufacture sword-blades of excellent temper.
As in other eastern countries, the
greater
nobles exhibited an
extreme magnificence ; but trade and the arts were held in low
esteem, and the mass of the people were excessively poor. Their
buildings, though they had some few solid structures of stone, were
principally light erections of wood, to avoid the effects of frequent
earthquakes ; but this and the varnish employed exposed them to
conflagrations, which, in the towns, were very frequent and destruc-
tive. These towns consisted, for the most part, of very cheap struc-
tures, (like most of those throughout the East), so that cities were
built and destroyed with equal ease and celerity.
Their commerce was limited almost entirely to the interchange of