are covered with neat mats. The rooms are separated from each other by screens, upon removal of which several small rooms may be enlarged into one, or the contrary done if needful. The walls are hung with shining paper, curiously painted with gold and silver flowers. The upper part of the wall, for some inches down from the ceiling, is commonly left empty, and only clayed with an orange-colored clay, which is dug up about this city, and is, because of its beautiful color, exported into other provinces. The mats, doors, and screens are all of the same size, six Japanese feet long and three broad. The houses themselves, and their several rooms, are built proportionably according to a certain number of mats, more or less. There is commonly a curious garden behind the house, such as I have described elsewhere. Behind the garden is the bathing-stove, and sometimes a vault, or rather a small room, with strong walls of clay and lime, to preserve, in case of fire, the richest household goods and furniture. “Ōsaka is extremely populous, and if we believe what the boasting Japanese tell us, can raise an army of eighty thousand men from among its inhabitants. It is the best trading town in Japan, being extraordinarily well situated for carrying on a commerce both by land and water. This is the reason why it is so well inhabited by rich merchants, artificers and manufacturers. Provisions are cheap, notwithstanding the city is so well peopled. Whatever tends to promote luxury, and to gratify all sensual pleasures, may be had at as easy a rate here as anywhere, and for this reason the Japanese call Ōsaka the universal theatre of pleasures and diversions. Plays are to be seen daily, both in public and in private houses. Mountebanks, jugglers, who can show some artful tricks, and all the raree-show people who have either some uncommon, or monstrous animal to exhibit, or animals taught to play tricks, resort thither from all parts of the empire, being sure to get a better penny here than anywhere else.[15] Hence it is no wonder that numbers of strangers and travellers daily resort thither, chiefly rich people, as to a place where they can spend their time and money with much greater satisfaction than perhaps anywhere else in the empire. The western princes and lords on this side Ōsaka all have houses in this city, and people to attend them in their passage through, and yet they are not permitted to stay longer than a night, besides that upon their departure they are obliged to follow a road entirely out of sight of the castle. “The water which is drank at Ōsaka tastes a little brackish; but in lieu of thereof they have the best sake in the empire, which is brewed in great quantities in the neighboring village, Tennōji, and from thence exported into most other provinces, nay, by the Dutch and Chinese, out of the country.