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.
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