On the two last days of the year a general settlement of accounts takes place. Fresh credit is then given for six months, when a new settlement takes place. The rate of interest was high, ranging from eighteen to twenty per cent. Thunberg was told that, after new-year’s day, there was no right to demand settlement of the last year’s accounts. Shortly after the Japanese new year, took place the trampling of images, which ceremony, according to the information obtained by Thunberg, was still performed by all the inhabitants of Nagasaki, exactly as in Kämpfer’s time. On the 4th of March the director set out for the emperor’s court, accompanied, as usual, by the secretary of the factory, and by Thunberg as physician. In Kämpfer’s day these two latter persons had been obliged to make the journey on horseback, exposed to cold, rain, and all the inclemencies of the weather. Since then they had obtained the privilege of travelling in norimono, equally with the director. Dr. Thunberg seems to have been well satisfied with his vehicle, which he describes as both handsome and convenient. Each norimono traveller had with him a bottle of red wine, and another of Dutch ale, taken daily from the large stock provided for the journey, and preferred by the Europeans to tea, which they regarded as a “great relaxer of the stomach.” Each traveller had also an oblong lackered box, containing “a double slice of bread and butter.” In order to support the dignity of the Dutch East India Company, the bed equipage which they carried with them, consisting of coverlids, pillows, and mattresses, was covered with the richest open-work velvets and silks. Their retinue, on horseback and on foot, was numerous and picturesque. They were received everywhere with the honor and respect paid to the princes of the land; and, besides, says Thunberg, were so well guarded “that no harm could befall us, and, at the same time, so well attended that we had no more care upon our minds than a sucking child; the whole of our business consisting in eating and drinking, or in reading or writing for our amusement, in sleeping, dressing ourselves, and being carried about in our norimono.” [Illustration: THE EAR-MOUND AT KYŌTŌ] At setting out, each of the three Dutchmen received from the purveyor fifty taels, for their individual expenses. This was the first Japanese money which Thunberg had seen, and this, with other sums doled out to them from time to time, was chiefly spent in presents to their attendants. The disbursement on this score, at starting, amounted to ten taels each.