[11] Of these pearls Kämpfer says, in another place, that they are found almost everywhere about Kiūshiū in oysters and several other sea shells. Everybody is at liberty to fish for them. Formerly the natives had little or no value for them till they were sought for by the Chinese. The Japanese pretend, as to one particular kind, that when put into a box full of a peculiar sort of complexion-powder made of another shell, one or two young pearls will grow out at the sides, and when they come to maturity, as they do in two or three years, will drop off; but Kämpfer, having never seen this phenomenon, is not willing to vouch for its reality. [12] The same tree Kämpfer found on his return (May 6) in full blossom, and a very beautiful sight. It was noticed as still standing in 1826, by Siebold, who found it by measurement to be fifty feet in circumference. [13] Caron also speaks of these springs, some of which he describes as intermittent. Some are boiling hot, and their waters had been used, as we have seen, in the torture of the Catholics. They are all found in a volcanic mountain, having several craters which eject black sand and smoke. In the interior of the province of Higo, on the opposite shore of the gulf of Shimabara, is another volcano. The province of Satsuma is entirely volcanic, and off its southern extremity is an island that burns incessantly.—_Klaproth_, from Japanese authorities, “_Asiatic Journal_,” vol. xxx. [14] On Kämpfer’s second journey to Yedo (1692), the second night was passed at Kurume, which they reached by crossing the bay of Shimabara in boats, thus leaving the principality of Ōmura and the city of Saga on their left. The next day at noon they struck into the road followed on the first journey. [15] “Some years ago,” says Kämpfer, “our East India Company sent over from Batavia a Casuar (a large East India bird, who would swallow stones and hot coals) as a present to the emperor. This bird having the sad ill luck not to please our rigid censors, the governors of Nagasaki, and we having thereupon been ordered to send him back to Batavia, a rich Japanese assured us that if he could have obtained leave to buy him, he would have willingly given a thousand taels for him, as being sure within a year’s time to get double that money only by showing him at Ōsaka.” The mermaids exhibited in Europe and America to the great profit of enterprising showmen, have been of Japanese manufacture. [16] A mistake for Yamashiro.—EDR. [17] Name of a town on Lake Biwa.—EDR. [18] The _Aratame_ is a sort of an inquisition into the life and family of every inhabitant, the number of his children and domestics, the sect he professes or the temples he belongs to, made very punctually, once every year, in every city and district, by commissioners appointed for this purpose.