After two years thus spent, Kämpfer left Japan in November, 1692, and reached Amsterdam, by way of Batavia, the October following, bringing with him a very rare collection of Japanese books, maps, coins, etc. It had been his intention immediately on his return to prepare his notes and memoirs for publication; but being appointed physician to the count of Lippe, his native prince, and speedily obtaining a large private practice, and assuming also the responsibility and cares of a family, this purpose was long delayed. His “Amoenitates Exoticae,” notes of his eastern travels, did not appear till 1712, and he died in 1716, leaving his “History of Japan” still unpublished. It first appeared in 1727, translated from the German into English, and published in two folios, with numerous engravings[134], under the patronage of Sir Hans Sloane and the Royal Society. There was prefixed to it by the translator, Dr. I. G. Scheuchzer, a valuable introduction, containing a catalogue of works upon Japan which Charlevoix, in the similar catalogue at the end of his History of Japan, has mainly copied; as was done also by his publishers, as to most of Kämpfer’s engravings. Kämpfer’s work is divided into five books[135]. The first book contains, first, a general and particular geographical description of the empire, derived mainly from Japanese writers; second, a disquisition on the origin of the Japanese,—whom Kämpfer thinks, from the evidence as well of language as of character, not to be a Chinese colony, nor even to belong to the same stock; third, the stories, evidently mythical, which the Japanese give of their own origin; and fourth, an account of the climate of Japan, its minerals and metals, plants, animals, reptiles, fish and shells. The second book devoted to the political state of Japan contains, first, their mythological history; second, the annals of the Dairi, with a description of their court and residence; and third, a list of the Kubō-Sama. This part of the work, at least the annals, is sufficiently dry; but it contains the substance of all that the Japanese know or believe as to the chronology of their own history. The third book describes the religious state of Japan, giving an analytical view of the different creeds prevailing there, such as throws great light upon the confused and mixed up view taken in the letters of the Jesuit missionaries. The fourth book treats of foreign relations and trade. The rise and fall of the Portuguese missions, although the most interesting portion of the history of Japan, is very slightly touched upon, as it seems to have been no part of Kämpfer’s plan to revamp old materials, but to collect new ones. The fifth book, and much the largest, is devoted, to his two journeys from Nagasaki to Yedo and back—those journeys having furnished him with the principal opportunity he enjoyed of seeing Japan as it was.