They are said to be an intelligent and provident people, inquisitive and ingenious, frugal and sober, friendly courteous, frank and good humoured, upright and honest, brave and unyielding, capable of concealing and controlling their feelings in an extraordinary degree ; but distrustful, proud, unforgiving, and revengeful.
The usual dress of the Japanese is a short tipper gar ment with wide sleeves, and a complete gown underneath, fastened round the neck, and reaching quite down to the feet ; the dress much resembling that of European fe males, except in being more confined from the hips down wards, which produces great embarrassment in walking. But this exercise is seldom resorted to by a Japanese, ex cept from compulsion. The rich are clothed in silks, the poor in coarse woollen stuffs. The upper garment is ge nerally black, the under dress is of mixed colours. Every one has his family arms, about the size of a half dollar, wrought into his clothes in different places, a practice common to both sexes. Thus persons of a particular fami ly may be easily recognized. A young lady wears her father's arms till after marriage, when she assumes those of her husband. The greatest honour a prince or gover nor can confer is, to present a cloak with his arms upon it ; and the person who is thus honoured puts his own arms upon some under part of his dress. In winter they wear five or six dresses over each other ; but though the weather is bad in January and February, they use neither cloth nor furs in their apparel. • Instead of shoes they have soles merely of straw, fastened to the great toe by a loop, and these are taken off when they ente• a room. Although they have their heads half shorn, they are regardless of a burning sun, or piercing cold. They do not use parasols in sunshine, nor umbrellas in rainy weather ; but in travel ling, conical caps, fans, umbrellas, and cloaks of oiled pa per, are very commonly used. The toilets of the Japanese must occupy a considerable share of attention, as they are very particular in anointing and dressing their hair, which is collected in a tuft on the crown of the head. Small pin cers are employed to pluck out the hairs on their chin, and these, with a small metal looking mirror, are found in the possession of every Japanese. They cannot be denied, Kru• senstern observes, to study great cleanliness of person, al though they make no use of linen ; and this appears a go verning propensity of the Japanese of every rank. Hence, in almost every house, a bath forms an essential part of do mestic arrangement and comfort. But in one respect their customs are extremely offensive. The privies, which are also indispensable in every house, arc all huilt towards the street or road, and open outwards, exhibiting large jars sunk in the earth, to receive every kind of ordure and re fuse. Hence the stench is insupportable, and the putrid exhalations, as Thunberg affirms, injurious to the eyes of the natives.
In Japan the houses are of wood, never exceeding two stories, the upper one consisting chiefly of garrets and lumber rooms. Though the house is commodious, it con sists in general of one room, capable, by moveable parti tions and screens, of being divided into apartments. Neither tables nor chairs are used, the people sitting squat on straw mats, in which position they eat their food.
The diet of the Japanese is composed of a greater va riety of articles than that of any other people in the world. Not contented with the numerous kinds of wholesome and nutritive food supplied by the produce of their lands and waters, they contrive, by their modes of preparing their victuals, to render the less valuable, and even the poisonous parts of animal and vegetable substances useful, or at least harmless articles of subsistence. Their meats are cut into small pieces, thoroughly stewed or boiled, and always high ly seasoned with strong spices and sauces. At their meals, the company are seated on the floor-mats, with a small square table before each person, whose portion is served up in neat vessels of porcelain, or of japanned wood, which are tolerably large basins, always furnished with lids. The guests salute each other with a low bow before they begin to eat ; and, like the Chinese, take up the food by means of two small pieces of wood, held between the fingers of the right hand, and used with great dexterity, so as to pick up the smallest grain of rice. Between each dish they drink warm sacki, or rice beer, out of shallow saucers, and at the same time occasionally take a bit of a hard boiled egg. Some of the most common dishes are fish boiled with onions and a kind of small beans, or dressed with oil ; fowls, stewed and prepared in numerous modes ; and boiled rice, which supplies the place of bread for all their provisions. Oils, mushrooms, carrots, and various bulbous roots, are used in making up their dishes. Tea and rice beer are the only liquors used by the Japanese; and it is with difficulty that they can be persuaded to taste wines or spirits. The sacki, or rice beer, heats and inebriates when taken to any extent, but the intoxication which it produces passes off speedily. Tea, which is always ready, is the usual beve rage for quenching thirst. It is customary to eat three times a clay; at eight o'clock in the morning, two in the afternoon, and eight in the evening. The women eat by themselves, apart from the men. The practice of smoking tobacco, which is supposed to have been introduced ir,to Japan by the Portuguese, is very common with both sexes. Their pipes are very short, seldom more than six inches in length, and scarcely contain half a thimble full of tobacco. The stem is made of lack ered bamboo, and the mouth-piece and bowl of copper. They are smoked out by a very few whiffs, and require to be repeatedly filled. The apparatus used by persons of distinction consists of an oblong box, about eighteen inches in length and a foot in breadth, of a brown or black colour, which contains, besides pipes and tobacco, three cups ; one, which is lined with brass, for holding a live coal to light the pipe, another to receive the ashes of the tobacco, and a third to serve as a spit-box. At visits, this apparatus is the first thing that is placed be fore the guests, and is sometimes carried by a servant to places where tobacco is not expected to be presented. The poorer classes have their tobacco pouch and pipe slung to their girdle by a silken cord.