“Miyako is the great magazine of all Japanese manufactures and commodities, and the chief mercantile town in the empire. There is scarce a house in this large capital where there is not something made or sold. Here they refine copper, coin money, print books, weave the richest stuffs, with gold and silver flowers. The best and scarcest dyes, the most artful carvings, all sorts of musical instruments, pictures, japanned cabinets, all sorts of things wrought in gold and other metals, particularly in steel, as the best tempered blades, and other arms, are made here in the utmost perfection, as are, also, the richest dresses, and after the best fashion, all sorts of toys, puppets, moving their heads of themselves, and, in short, there is nothing can be thought of but what may be found at Miyako, and nothing, though never so neatly wrought, can be imported from abroad, but what some artist or other in this capital will undertake to imitate it. Considering this, it is no wonder that the manufactures of Miyako are become so famous throughout the empire as to be easily preferred to all others (though, perhaps, inferior in some particulars), only because they have the name of being made there. There are but few houses in all the chief streets where there is not something to be sold, and, for my part, I could not help admiring whence they can have customers enough for such an immense quantity of goods. ’Tis true, indeed, there is scarce anybody passes through but what buys something or other of the manufactures of this city, either for his own use, or for presents to be made to his friends and relations. [Illustration: AN ARCHER] “The lord chief justice resides at Miyako, a man of great power and authority, as having the supreme command, under the emperor, of all the bugiō, governors, stewards, and other officers, who are any ways concerned in the government of the imperial cities, crown lands and tenements, in all the western provinces of the empire. Even the western princes themselves must, in some measure, depend on him, and have a great regard to his person as a mediator and compounder of quarrels and difficulties that may arise between them. Nobody is suffered to pass through Arai and Hakone, two of the most important passes, and, in a manner, the keys of the imperial capital and court, without a passport, signed by his hand. “The political government and regulation of the streets is the same at Miyako as it is at Ōsaka and Nagasaki. The number of inhabitants of Miyako, in the year of our visit, will appear by the following _Aratame_[18] (exclusive, however, of those who live in the castle and at the Dairi’s court).” Negi (persons attending the Shintō temples) 9,003 Yamabushi (mountain priests) 6,073 Shukke (ecclesiastics of the Buddhist religion) 37,093