ship comes to an anchor, let down upon deck. The anchors are of iron, and cables twisted of straw, and stronger than one would imagine. Ships of this burden have commonly thirty or forty hands apiece to row them if the wind fails. The watermen’s benches are towards the stern. They row according to the air of a song, or other noise, which serves at the same time to direct and regulate their work and to encourage the rowers. They do not row after our European manner, extending their oars straight forwards, and cutting just the surface of the water, but let them fall down into the water almost perpendicularly, and then lift them up again. This way of rowing not only answers all the ends of the other, but is done with less trouble. The benches of the rowers are raised considerably above the surface of the water. Their oars are, besides, made in a particular manner, calculated for this way of rowing, being not straight like our European oars, but somewhat bent, with a movable joint in the middle, which, yielding to the violent pressure of the water, facilitates the taking them up. The ship’s timbers and planks are fastened together with hooks and bands of copper. The stern is adorned with a knot of fringes made of thin, long, black strings. Men of quality in their voyages have their cabin hung all about with cloth, whereupon is stitched their coats of arms. Their pike of state, as the badge of their authority, is put up upon the stern on one side of the rudder. On the other side there is a weather-flag for the use of the pilot. In small ships, as soon as they come to an anchor, the rudder is hoisted up, and one end of it extended to the shore, so that one may pass through the opening of the stern, as through a back door, and walking over the rudder, as over a bridge, get ashore. Thus much of the ships. I proceed now to other structures and buildings travellers meet with in their journeys by land. [Illustration: A MERCHANT SHIP From _Official History of Japan_]