“There are no other spitting-pots brought into the room but that which comes along with the tobacco. If there be occasion for more they make use of small pieces of bamboo, a hand broad and high, sawed from between the joints and hollowed. The candles brought in at night are hollow in the middle; the wick, which is of paper, being wound about a wooden stick before the tallow is laid on. For this reason, also, the candlesticks have a punch or bodkin at top, which the candles are fixed upon. They burn very quick, and make a great deal of smoke and smell, the oil or tallow being made of the berries of bay-trees, camphor-trees, and some others of the kind. It is somewhat odd and ridiculous to see the whirling motion of the ascending smoke followed by the flame, when the candle is taken off the punch at the top of the candlestick. Instead of lamps, they make use of small, flat, earthen vessels, filled with train-oil made of the fat of whales, or of oil made of cotton-seed. The wick is made of rush, and the abovesaid earthen vessel stands in another filled with water, or in a square lantern, that, in case the oil should by chance take fire, no damage may thereupon come to the house. “The Japanese, in their journeys, sit down to table thrice a day, besides what they eat between meals. They begin early in the morning and before break of day, at least before they set out, with a good, substantial breakfast; then follows dinner at noon, and the day is concluded with a plentiful supper at night. It being forbid to play at cards, they sit after meals, drinking and singing some songs, to make one another merry, or else they propose some riddles round, or play at some other game, and he that cannot explain the riddle, or loses the game, is obliged to drink a glass. It is again quite otherwise with us, for we sit at table and eat our victuals very quietly. Our cloth is laid, and the dishes dressed after the European manner, but by Japanese cooks. We are presented, besides, by the landlord, each with a Japanese dish. We drink European wines and the rice-beer of the country hot. All our diversion is confined, in the daytime, to the small garden which is behind the house; at night to the bath, in case we please to make use of it. No other pleasure is allowed us, no manner of conversation with the domestics, male or female, excepting what, through the connivance of our inspectors, some of us find means to procure at night in private and in their own rooms.