all the men on board, whom they muster by one of their own
commissaries.

Japan is well peopled, and produces every thing necessary for human
sustenance in great plenty; yet the Dutch pay high for every thing
they need, and have even to purchase wood for fuel by weight. The
mountains are rich in gold, silver, and copper, which last is the best
in the world. Their porcelain is finer than that of China, as also
much thicker and heavier, with finer colours, and sells much dearer
both in India and Europe. The tea of Japan, however, is not near so
good as that of China. Their lackered ware, usually called Japan, is
the best in the world, and some of it will even hold boiling water
without being injured. They have abundance of silks, both raw and
manufactured, much stronger than what is produced in China. Their
houses are mostly built of wood, but the palace of the emperor is
of marble, covered with copper, so remarkably well gilded that it
withstands the weather many years. Jeddo is the metropolis, and its
magnitude may be guessed from this circumstance, that in a great
fire which raged in this city for eight days, about the year 1660, it
consumed 120,000 houses, and 500 temples.

The Japanese are strict observers of moral rules, especially in
commercial matters; insomuch that merchants of reputation put up sums
of gold _cupangs_, always in decimal numbers, in silken bags, sealed
with their seals; and these bags always pass current for the several
sums indicated by the seals, without any one ever examining the
contents of the bags for several generations. These _cupangs_ are
broad oblong pieces of gold, of about twenty shillings value in Japan;
but gold is there so plentiful and cheap, in relation to silver, that
a _cupang_ passes current in Batavia for thirty-two shillings; and,
after being stampt with the lion of the Company, it passes for forty
shillings sterling. The Japanese also are exact observers of justice,
and punish crimes with extreme rigour. To a man of distinction,
when found guilty of a capital crime, the emperor writes a letter,
commanding him to become his own executioner, on an appointed day and
hour, on penalty of being subjected to the most exquisite tortures,
if he survive the appointed time. On receiving this mandate, the
delinquent invites all his friends and near relations to a sumptuous
feast on the set day. When the feast is over, he shows them the letter
from the emperor, and, while they are read