Hildreth's "Japan as It Was and Is": A Handbook of Old Japan, Volume 1 (of 2)Hildreth, Richard
History
Hildreth's "Japan as It Was and Is": A Handbook of Old Japan, Volume 1 (of 2)
Hildreth, Richard
Japan -- History
[130] These temples, built in Japan by the Chinese merchants, remind
one of the temples built in Egypt by the Greek merchants, who first
opened a trade with that country. See Grote’s “History of Greece,”
chap. xx.
[131] The _kamishimo_ is a state dress, composed of two garments
(_kami_ signifies what is above, and _shimo_ what is below), a short
cloak, without sleeves, called _kataginu_, and breeches, called
_hakama_. Both are of a particular form (the breeches being like a
petticoat sewed up between the legs), and of colored stuffs. They are
used only on days of ceremony and at funerals.—_Titsingh._
[132] Unfortunately for the English, their attempt at a revival of
intercourse, mentioned in the last chapter, was made the very year of
the introduction of this new check on foreign trade. The appraisement
extended as well to the Chinese as the Dutch cargoes, as is apparent
from the following closing paragraph of the English narrative: “During
the time (July and August, 1673) we were in port, there came twelve
junks in all, eight from Batavia, two from Siam, one from Canton, one
from Cambodia, and six Dutch ships of the Company’s. They had not any
from Taiwan (Formosa), by reason the year before they put the price
upon their sugar and skins; and so they intend to do for all other
people, for whatsoever goods shall be brought to their port; which if
they do, few will seek after their commodities on such unequal terms.”
There is strong reason to suppose that these new restrictions on
foreign trade grew out of the diminished produce of the mines, which
furnished the chief article of export. The working of these mines
seems to have greatly increased after the pacification of Japan by its
subjection to the imperial authority. Such is the statement in the
Japanese tract on the wealth of Japan, already referred to. According
to this tract the first gold coins were struck by Taikō-Sama. This
increase of metallic product seems to have given, about the time of the
commencement of the Dutch trade, a new impulse to foreign commerce.
Though the Portuguese trade had been stopped, it had been a good deal
more than replaced by the increase of the Chinese traffic, and already
the metallic drain appears to have been seriously felt. This is a much
more likely reason for the policy now adopted than the mere personal
hostility of certain Japanese grandees, to which the Dutch at Deshima,
and Kämpfer as their echo, ascribed it.
[133] According to Titsingh, the Chinese factory was removed, in 1780,
to a new situation, the site of an ancient temple. He gives a plan of
the new factory after a Japanese draft.
[134] Thunberg notices an odd mistake by the engravers, in representing
the Japanese as wearing their swords as we do, with the edge downward,
whereas their custom is just the reverse, the edge being turned upwards.
[135] See also an “Abstract” of Kämpfer’s History in vol. ii of the
“Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.”—EDR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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