This Garrison Is Shifted Every Third Year, And The Relief
Took Place While We Were There, So That We Saw The Old Bands March Away
And The New Enter, Which They Did In A Most Soldier-Like Manner.
They
marched five abreast, and to every ten files or fifty men there was a
captain, who kept his men in excellent order.
Their shot marched first,
being calivers, for they have no muskets and will not use any, then
followed pikes, next swords or cattans and targets, these were
followed by bows and arrows, and then a band armed with weapons called
waggadashes, resembling Welsh hooks: These were succeeded by calivers,
and so on as before; but without any ensigns or colours; neither had
they any drums or other warlike instruments of music. The first file of
the band armed with cattans had silver scabbards, and the last file
which marched next the captain had their scabbards of gold. The
companies or bands were of various numbers, some 500, some 300, and some
only of 150 men. In the middle of every band there were three horses
very richly caparisoned, their saddles being covered by costly furs, or
velvet, or stammel broad-cloths. Every horse was attended by three
slaves, who led them in silken halters, and their eyes were hoodwinked
by means of leathern covers.
After each troop or band, the captain followed on horseback, his bed and
all his necessaries being laid upon his own horse equally poised on both
sides, and over all was spread a covering of red felt of China, on the
top of which sat the captain crosslegged, like a huckster between two
paniers. Such as were old or weak in the back had a staff artificially
fixed on the pannel, on which he could lean back and rest himself as if
sitting in a choir. We met the captain-general of this new garrison two
days after meeting his first band, having in the mean time met several
of these bands in the course of our journey, some a league, and others
two leagues from each other. The general travelled in great state, much
beyond the other bands, yet the second band had their arms much more
richly decorated than the first, and the third than the second, and so
every successive band more sumptuous than another. The captain-general
hunted and hawked all the way, having his own hounds and hawks along
with him, the hawks being hooded and lured as ours in England. The
horses that accompanied him for his own riding were six in number, and
were all richly caparisoned. These horses were not tall, but of the size
of our middling nags, short and well knit, small-headed, and very
mettlesome, and in my opinion far excelling the Spanish jennet in spirit
and action. His palanquin was carried before him, being lined with
crimson velvet, and having six bearers, two and two to carry at a time.
Such excellent order was taken for the passing and providing of these
soldiers, that no person either inhabiting or travelling in the road by
which they passed and lodged, was in any way injured by them, but all of
them were as cheerfully entertained as any other guests, because they
paid for what they had as regularly as any other travellers. Every town
and village on the way being well provided with cooks-shops and
victualling houses, where they could get every thing they had a mind
for, and diet themselves at any sum they pleased, between the value of
an English penny and two shillings. The most generally used article of
food in Japan is rice of different qualities, as with our wheats and
other kinds of grain, the whitest being reckoned the best, and is used
instead of bread, to which they add fresh or salted fish, some pickled
herbs, beans, radishes, and other roots, salted or pickled; wild-fowl,
such as duck, mallard, teal, geese, pheasants, partridges, quails, and
various others, powdered or put up in pickle. They have great abundance
of poultry, as likewise of red and fallow deer, with wild boars, hares,
goats, and kine. They have plenty of cheese, but have no butter, and use
no milk, because they consider it to be of the nature of blood.
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.
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