“When everything is ready for us to set out again, the landlord is called, and our president, in presence of the two interpreters, pays him the reckoning in gold, laid upon a small salver. He draws near, in a creeping posture, kneeling, holding his hands down to the floor, and when he takes the salver which the money is laid upon, he bows down his forehead almost quite to the ground, in token of submission and gratitude, uttering with a deep voice the words _ah! ah! ah!_ whereby in this country inferiors show their deference and respect to their superiors. He then prepares to make the same compliment to the other Dutchmen; but our interpreters generally excuse him this trouble, and make him return in the same crawling posture. Every landlord hath two koban paid him for dinner, and three for supper and lodgings at night. For this money he is to provide victuals enough for our whole train, the horses, the men that look after them, and porters only excepted. The same sum is paid to the landlords in the cities, where we stay some days, as at Ōsaka, Miyako, and Yedo, namely, five koban a day, without any further recompense. The reason of our being kept so cheap, as to victuals and lodging, is because this sum was agreed on with our landlords a long while ago, when our train was not yet so bulky as it now is.[9] It is a custom in this country, which we likewise observe, that guests, before they quit the inn, order their servants to sweep the room they lodged in, not to leave any dirt, or ungrateful dust, behind them. [Illustration: A DAIMYŌ’S PROCESSION] “From this reasonable behavior of the landlords, the reader may judge of the civility of the whole nation in general, always excepting our own officers and servants. I must own that, in the visits we made or received in our journey, we found the same to be greater than could be expected from the most civilized nations. The behavior of the Japanese, from the meanest countryman up to the greatest prince or lord, is such that the whole empire might be called a school of civility and good manners. They have so much sense and innate curiosity, that, if they were not absolutely denied a free and open conversation and correspondence with foreigners, they would receive them with the utmost kindness and pleasure. In some towns and villages only we took notice that the young boys, who are childish all over the world, would run after us, calling us names, and cracking some malicious jests or other, levelled at the Chinese, whom they take us to be. One of the most common, and not much different from a like sort of a compliment which is commonly made to Jews in Germany, is _Tōjin baibai?_ which, in broken Chinese, signifies, _Chinese, have ye nothing to truck?_