“Another sort we met with as we went along were differently clad, some in an ecclesiastical, others in a secular habit. These stood in the fields, next to the road, and commonly had a sort of altar standing before them, upon which they placed the idol of their Briaréus, or Kwannon, as they call him, carved in wood and gilt; or the pictures of some other idols, scurvily done, as, for instance, the picture of Amida, the supreme judge of departed souls; of Emma, or the head-keeper of the prison, whereunto the condemned souls are confined; of _Jizō_, or the supreme commander in the purgatory of children; and some others, wherewith, and by some representations of the flames and torments prepared for the wicked in a future world, they endeavor to stir up in passengers compassion and charity. “Other beggars, and these, to all appearance, honest enough, are met sitting along the road, clad much after the same manner with the Kwannon beggars, with a _Jizō_ staff in their hand. These have made vow not to speak during a certain time, and express their want and desire only by a sad, dejected, woeful countenance.[6] “Not to mention numberless other common beggars, some sick, some stout and lusty enough, who get people’s charity by praying, singing, playing upon fiddles, guitars, and other musical instruments, or performing some juggler’s tricks, I will close the account of this vermin with an odd, remarkable sort of a beggar’s music, or rather chime of bells, we sometimes, but rarely, met with in our journey to court. A young boy, with a sort of a wooden machine pendent from his neck, and a rope, with eight strings about it, from which hang down eight bells, of different sounds, turns round in a circle, with a swiftness scarce credible, in such a manner that both the machine, which rests upon his shoulders, and the bells, turn round with him horizontally, the boy, in the meanwhile, with great dexterity and quickness, beating them with two hammers, makes a strange, odd sort of a melody. To increase the noise, two people sitting near him beat, one upon a large, the other upon a smaller drum. Those who are pleased with their performance throw them some zeni as they pass.[7] “The crowd and throng upon the roads is not a little increased by numberless small retail merchants, and children of country people, who run about from morning to night, following travellers, and offering them for sale their poor, for the most part eatable, merchandise,—such as several cakes and sweetmeats, wherein the quantity of sugar is so inconsiderable that it is scarce perceptible, other cakes, of different sorts, made of flour, roots boiled in water and salt, road-books, straw shoes for horses and men, ropes, strings, toothpickers, and a multitude of other trifles, made of wood, straw, reed, and bamboos.