to visit the temples, and give themselves up to all kinds of rural diversions. Nothing could be more grotesque than the appearance of these crowds. The women were richly dressed in various-coloured robes, with a purple-coloured silk about their foreheads, and wearing large straw hats, to defend their beauty from the sun. Here and there among the multitude were small groups of beggars, some dressed in fantastic garbs, with strange masks upon their faces, others walking upon high iron stilts, while a third party walked along bearing large pots with green trees upon their heads. The more merry among them sung, whistled, played upon the flute, or beat little bells which they carried in their hands. In the streets were numbers of open shops, jugglers, and players, who were exercising their skill and ingenuity for the amusement of the crowd. The temples, which were erected on the slope of the neighbouring green hills, were illuminated with numerous lamps, and the priests, no less merry or active than their neighbours, employed themselves in striking with iron hammers upon some bells or gongs, which sent forth a thundering sound over the country. Through this enlivening scene they pushed on to their inn, where they were ushered into apartments, which, being like all other apartments in the empire, destitute of chimneys, resembled those Westphalian smoking-rooms in which they smoke their beef and hams. Having visited the governor, and the lord chief justice of Miako, and delivered the customary presents, the embassy proceeded towards Jeddo. Short, however, as was their stay, Kæmpfer found leisure for observing and describing the city, which was extensive, well-built, and immensely populous. Being the chief mercantile and manufacturing town in the empire, almost every house was a shop, and every man an artisan. Here, he observes, they refined copper, coined money, printed books, wove the richest stuffs, flowered with gold and silver, manufactured musical instruments, the best-tempered sword-blades, pictures, jewels, toys, and every species of dress and ornaments.