[39] Kämpfer had seen the ginseng cultivated in gardens in Japan, but it was not supposed to possess the virtues of the Chinese article. Father Jontoux, one of the Jesuit missionaries in China, employed by the emperor in preparing a map of the region north of the great wall, had an opportunity to see the ginseng growing wild. He sent home, in 1711, a full account of it, with drawings (which may be found in “Voyages au Nord,” vol. iv), and suggested, from the similarity of the climate, that the same plant might be found in Canada, as it soon was by the Jesuit missionaries there. [40] This sauce, used in great quantities in Japan, and exported to Batavia by the Dutch, whence it has become known throughout the East Indies and also in Europe, is made from the soy bean (_Dolichos Soia_), extensively used by the Japanese in the making of soup. The soy is prepared as follows: the beans are boiled till they become rather soft, when an equal quantity of pounded barley or wheat is added. These ingredients being mixed, the compound is set away for twenty-four hours in a warm place to ferment. An equal quantity of salt is then added, and twice and a half as much water. It is stirred several times a day for several days, and then stands well covered for two or three months, when the liquid portion is decanted, strained, and put in wooden casks. It is of a brown color, improves with age, but varies in quality, according to the province where it is made. The Dutch of Deshima cork up the better qualities in glass bottles, boiling the liquor first in an iron kettle, to prevent fermentation, by which it is liable to be spoiled. [41] The murdering of the children may be explained by the following passage from one of the letters of Cocks, the English factor, written at Hirado, in December, 1614: “James Turner, the fiddling youth, left a wench with child here, but the w—e, the mother, killed it so soon as it was born, although I gave her two taels in plate (silver) before to nourish it, because she should not kill it, it being an ordinary thing here.” [42] Cocks also had noticed their existence a century and a half earlier. [43] This was doubtless the lexicon printed at Amakusa in 1595. See note, p. 158. [44] A precedent of a similar permission, formerly granted to the medical men of the factory, was found, but, upon a critical examination of Thunberg’s commission, he appeared to be a surgeon, whereas he to whom permission had formerly been granted had been surgeon’s mate, and it took three months to get over this difficulty, and to persuade the Japanese that these two officers were in substance the same. [45] This species, the _Dioscorea Japonica_ (confounded sometimes with the sweet potato), has been lately introduced into the United States.