Though the view taken by Thunberg of the Japanese presents them perhaps not quite so high in the scale of civilization as Kämpfer’s, yet he is scarcely less their admirer, coinciding, indeed, in this respect, with most of the Europeans who have left any memorials of their observations in Japan. He notes especially their courtesy, friendly disposition, ingenuity, love of knowledge, justice, honesty, frugality, cleanliness, and self-respect; and he emphatically repudiates the conclusion that, because the laws are severe and strictly executed, the people are therefore to be regarded as slaves. These laws are for the public good, and their severity ensures their observance. “The Japanese,” he tells us, “hate and detest the inhuman traffic in slaves carried on by the Dutch, and the cruelty with which these poor creatures are treated.” In common with Kämpfer he admires and extols the immutability of the Japanese laws and customs; but this seems hardly so legitimate a subject of eulogy as the peace in which the empire is kept, the plenty which is said to prevail,[69] and its freedom as well from internal feuds, political or religious, as from foreign encroachments. Thunberg’s “Flora Japonica” describes about a thousand species, of which upwards of three hundred were new. In the preface to it he speaks of the Japanese Islands as chiefly hills and valleys, with high mountains. Plains and meadows are rare. The soil is now clayey and now sandy. The summer heat is great, especially in July and August, sometimes one hundred degrees of Fahrenheit, and scarcely tolerable but for the breeze. In winter the thermometer, even in the most southern parts, falls many degrees below the freezing-point, especially with the wind from the north and west, with ice and snow, which on the highest mountains remains all the year round. The changes in the weather are great and sudden; violent storms with thunder and lightning are common. The rains are abundant throughout the year, and especially so in spring and summer, whence in part the fertility of Japan, mainly due, however, to careful cultivation. CHAPTER XLI _Isaac Titsingh—His Residence in Japan—Translations from the Japanese—Annals of the Dairi—Memoirs of the Shōgun—Liberal Ideas in Japan—Marriage Ceremonies—Funeral Ceremonies—Mourning—Feast of Lanterns—A. D. 1779-1791._