“The handsomest buildings belonging to townspeople are two streets all occupied by courtesans. The girls in these establishments, which abound throughout Japan, are purchased of their parents when very young. The price varies in proportion to their beauty and the number of years agreed for, which is, generally speaking, ten or twenty, more or less. They are very commodiously lodged in handsome apartments, and great care is taken to teach them to dance, sing, play upon musical instruments, to write letters, and in all other respects to make them as agreeable as possible. The older ones instruct the young ones, and these in their turn serve the older ones as their waiting-maids. Those who make considerable improvement, and for their beauty and agreeable behavior are oftener sent for, to the great advantage of their masters, are also better accommodated in clothes and lodging, all at the expense of their lovers, who must pay so much the dearer for their favors. The price paid to their landlord or master is from one _mas_ to two _ichibu_ (twelve and a half cents to four dollars), for a night, beyond which they are forbid to ask under severe penalties. One of the sorriest must watch the house over night in a small room near the door, free to all comers upon the payment of one mas. Others are sentenced to keep the watch by way of punishment for their misbehavior. “After having served their time, if they are married, they pass among the common people for honest women, the guilt of their past lives being by no means laid to their charge, but to that of their parents and relations who sold them in their infancy for so scandalous a way of getting a livelihood, before they were able to choose a more honest one. Besides, as they are generally well bred, that makes it less difficult for them to get husbands. The keepers of these houses, on the contrary, though possessed of never so plentiful estates, are forever denied admittance into honest company.” Kämpfer enumerates of public buildings three large wooden ship-houses, in which are kept three imperial junks or men-of-war, equipped and ready for launching; a powder-magazine on a hill opposite the town, and a city prison. There are also sixty-two temples, within and without the town—five for the worship of the _Kami_, or ancient national gods of Japan, seven of the Yamabushi, or mountain priests, and fifty _Tera_, temples of four different Buddhist sects or observances, including the three temples erected by the Chinese, as mentioned in a previous chapter.