The Kwannon temple was a structure very long in proportion to its breadth. In the midst was a gigantic image of Kwannon, with thirty-six arms. Sixteen black images, bigger than life, stood round it, and on each side two rows of gilt idols with twenty arms each. On either side of the temple, running from end to end, were ten platforms rising like steps one behind the other, on each of which stood fifty images of Kwannon, as large as life,—a thousand in all, each on its separate pedestal, so arranged as to stand in rows of five, one behind the other, and all visible at the same time, each with its twenty hands. On the hands and heads of all these are placed smaller idols, to the number of forty or more; so that the whole number, thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, according to the estimate of the Japanese, does not appear exaggerated. Klaproth[33] gives some curious details as to these temples, derived from a Japanese Guide Book, such as is sold to visitants. The dimensions of the temple and of the image of Daibutsu, or the great Buddha, are given with great minuteness. The body is seventy-seven feet five and one-fourth inches high (Rhineland measure), and the entire statue with the lotus, eighty-nine feet eight and three-fourths inches. The head of the colossus protrudes through the roof of the saloon.[34] At a little distance is a chapel called _Mimitsuka_, or “tomb of ears,” in which are buried the ears and noses of the Coreans who fell in the war carried on against them by Taikō-Sama, who had them salted and conveyed to Japan. The grand portico of the external wall of the temple is called Ni-ō-mon, “gate of the two kings.” On entering this vast portico, which is eighty-three and one-half feet high, on each side appears a colossal figure twenty-two feet in height, representing the two celestial kings, Aōn and Jugo, the usual porters at the Buddhist temples. Another edifice placed before the apartment of the great Buddha, contains the largest bell known in the world. It is seventeen feet two and one-half inches high, and weighs one million seven hundred thousand Japanese pounds (katties), equal to two million sixty-six thousand pounds English. Its weight is consequently five times greater than the great bell at Moscow. If this is the same bell described by Kämpfer, here is a remarkable discrepancy. CHAPTER XXXVIII _Further Decline of the Dutch Trade—Degradation of the Japanese Coins—The Dutch threaten to withdraw from Japan—Restrictions on the Chinese Trade—Probable Cause of the Policy adopted by the Japanese—Drain of the Precious Metals—New Basis upon which Future Trade must be arranged._ Notwithstanding the lamentations uttered by Kämpfer in the name of the Dutch factors, the trade to Japan had by no means in his time reached its lowest level, and it was subjected soon after his departure to new and more stringent limitations.