They have great abundance of swine.  Their wheat is all of the red kind, and is as good as ours in England, and they plough both with oxen and horses, as we do.  During our residence in Japan, we bought the best hens and pheasants at three-pence each, large fat pigs for twelve-pence, a fat hog for five shillings, a good ox, like our Welsh runts, at sixteen shillings, a goat for three shillings, and rice for a halfpenny the pound.  The ordinary drink of the common people is water, which they drink warm with their meat, holding it to be a sovereign remedy against worms in the maw.  They have no other drink but what is distilled from rice, as strong as our brandy, like Canary wine in colour, and not dear:  Yet, after drawing off the best and strongest, they still wring out a smaller drink, which serves the poorer people who cannot reach the stronger.

The 30th of August we were furnished with nineteen horses at the charge of the emperor, to carry up my attendants and the presents going in our king’s name to Surunga.  I had a palanquin appointed for my use, and a led horse, well caparisoned, to ride when I pleased, six men being appointed to carry my palanquin on plain ground, but where the road grew hilly, ten were allowed.  The officer appointed by king Foyne to accompany me, took up these men and horses by warrants, from time to time, and from place to place, just as post-horses are taken up in England, and also procured us lodgings at night; and, according to the custom of the country, I had a slave to run before me, carrying a pike.  We thus travelled every day fifteen or sixteen leagues, which we estimated at three miles the league, and arrived on the 6th of September at Surunga,[16] where the emperor resided.  The road for the most part is wonderfully even, and where it meets with mountains, a passage is cut through.  This is the main road of the whole country, and, is mostly covered with sand and gravel.  It is regularly measured off into leagues, and at every league there is a small hillock of earth on each side of the road, upon each of which is set a fair pine-tree, trimmed round like an arbour.  These are placed at the end of every league, that the hackney-men and horse-hirers may not exact more than their due, which is about three-pence for each league.

[Footnote 16:  Suruga, Surunga, or Sununnaga, is a town in the province of that name, at the head of the gulf of Totomina, about 50 miles S.W. from Jedo.—­E.]

The road is much frequented, and very full of people.  Every where, at short distances, we came to farms and country-houses, with numerous villages, and frequent large towns.  We had often likewise to ferry over rivers, and we saw many Futtakeasse or Fotoquis, being the temples of the Japanese, which are situated in groves, and in the pleasantest places of the country, having the priests that attend upon the idols dwelling around the temples, as our friars in old time used