“Multitudes of beggars crowd the roads in all parts of the empire, but particularly on the so much frequented Tōkaidō, among them many lusty young fellows, who shave their heads. To this shaved begging tribe belongs a certain remarkable religious order of young girls, called _Bikuni_, which is as much as to say, nuns. They live under the protection of the nunneries at Kamakura and Miyako, to which they pay a certain sum a year, of what they get by begging, as an acknowledgment of their authority. They are, in my opinion, by much the handsomest girls we saw in Japan. The daughters of poor parents, if they be handsome and agreeable, apply for and easily obtain this privilege of begging in the habit of nuns, knowing that beauty is one of the most persuasive inducements to generosity. The Yamabushi, or begging mountain priests (of whom more hereafter), frequently incorporate their own daughters into this religious order, and take their wives from among these Bikuni. Some of them have been bred up as courtesans, and having served their time, buy the privilege of entering into this religious order, therein to spend the remainder of their youth and beauty. They live two or three together, and make an excursion every day some few miles from their dwelling-house. They particularly watch people of fashion, who travel in norimono, or in kago, or on horseback. As soon as they perceive somebody coming, they draw near and address themselves, though not all together, but singly, every one accosting a gentleman by herself singing a rural song; and if he proves very liberal and charitable, she will keep him company and divert him for some hours. As, on the one hand, very little religious blood seems to circulate in their veins, so, on the other, it doth not appear that they labor under any considerable degree of poverty. It is true, indeed, they conform themselves to the rules of their order, by shaving their heads, but they take care to cover and to wrap them up in caps or hoods made of black silk. They go decently and neatly dressed, after the fashion of ordinary people. They wear also a large hat to cover their faces, which are often painted, and to shelter themselves from the heat of the sun. They commonly have a shepherd’s rod or hook in their hands. Their voice, gestures, and apparent behavior, are neither too bold and daring, nor too much dejected and affected, but free, comely, and seemingly modest. However, not to extol their modesty beyond what it deserves, it must be observed, that they make nothing of laying their bosoms quite bare to the view of charitable travellers, all the while they keep them company, under pretence of its being customary in the country; and, for aught I know, they may be, though never so religiously shaved, full as impudent and lascivious as any public courtesan.