“The common sauce for these and other dishes is a little _soy_, as they call it, mixed with _sake_, or the beer of the country. _Sanshō_ leaves are laid upon the dish for ornament, and sometimes thin slices of fine ginger and lemon peel. Sometimes they put powdered ginger, sanshō, or the powder of some root growing in the country, into the soup. They are also provided with sweetmeats, of several different colors and sorts, which, generally speaking, are far more agreeable to the eye than pleasing to the taste, being but indifferently sweetened with sugar, and so tough that one must have good teeth to chew them. Foot travellers find it set down in their printed road-books, which they always carry about them, where and at what price the best victuals of the kind are to be got. “Tea (since most travellers drink scarce anything else upon the road) is sold at all the inns and cook-shops, besides many tea-booths set up for this trade alone, in the midst of fields and woods, and at the stop of mountains. The tea sold at all these places is but a coarse sort, being only the largest leaves, which remain upon the shrub after the youngest and tenderest have been plucked off, at two different times, for the use of people of fashion, who constantly drink it, before or after their meals. These larger leaves are not rolled up and curled, as the better sort of tea is, but simply roasted in a pan, and continually stirred whilst they are roasting, lest they should get a burnt taste. When they are done enough, they put them by in straw baskets, under the roof of the house, near the place where the smoke comes out. They are not a bit nicer in preparing it for drinking, for they commonly take a good handful of the tea leaves, and boil them in a large iron kettle full of water. The leaves are sometimes put into a small bag; but, if not, they have a little basket swimming in the kettle, which they make use of to keep the leaves down, when they have a mind to take out some of the clear decoction. Half a cup of this decoction is mixed with cold water, when travellers ask for it. Tea thus prepared smells and tastes like lye—the leaves it is made of, besides that they are of a very bad sort, being seldom less than a year old; and yet the Japanese esteem it much more healthful for daily use than the young, tender leaves, prepared after the Chinese manner, which they say affect the head too strongly, though even these lose a great part of their narcotic quality when boiled.”[3] CHAPTER XXXIII _Number of People on the Road—Princely Retinues—Pilgrims to Ise—Junrei Pilgrims—Naked Devotees—Religious Beggars—Begging Order of Nuns—Yama-Bushi, or Mountain Priests—Buddhist Beggars—Singular Bell-chiming—Hucksters and Peddlers—Courtesans._