till they are pleased, in two or three days of sale, which they call Kamban, to sell them. What remains unsold is carried back to the warehouses, and kept there against the next year's sale. "The following goods are imported by us: raw silk, from China, Tonquin, Bengal, and Persia; all sorts of silks, woollen, and other stuffs (provided they be not wrought with gold and silver); Brazil wood; buffalo, and other hides; raw skins, wax, and buffalo horns from Siam; tanned hides from Persia, Bengal, and other places, but none from Spain and Manila, under pain of incurring their utmost displeasure; pepper; sugar, in powder and candied; cloves; nutmegs; camphor, from Borneo and Sumatra; quicksilver; cinnabar; saffron; lead; saltpetre; borax; alum; musk; gum benzoin; gum lac; rosmal, or storax liquida; catechu, commonly called Terra Japonica; fustic; corals; amber; right antimony (which they use to color their china ware); lookingglasses, which they cut up to make spy-glasses, magnifying glasses, and spectacles, out of them. Other things of less note are snakewood; mangoes, and other unripe East India fruits, pickled with Turkish pepper, garlic, and vinegar; black lead and red pencils; sublimate of mercury (but no calomel); fine files; needles; spectacles; large drinking-glasses of the finest sort; counterfeit corals; strange birds, and other foreign curiosities, both natural and artificial. Some of these are often sold in private, by sailors and others, without being produced upon the Kamban, and in this case the Dutch make no scruple to get as much for them beyond their real value as possibly they can. "Of all the imported goods, raw silk is the best liked, though it yields the least profit of any. All sorts of stuffs VOL. I.-21 and cloths yield a considerable and sure profit, and should there be never so much imported, the consumption in so populous a country would be still greater. Brazil wood and hides are also to be disposed of to very good advantage. The most profitable commodities are sugar, catechu, storax liquida, camphor of Borneo (which they covet above all other sorts), looking-glasses, etc., but only when they have occasion for them, and when the Chinese have imported in small quantities. Corals and amber are two of the most valuable commodities in these eastern parts; but Japan hath been so thoroughly provided by smugglers, that at present there is scarce fifty per cent to be got upon them, whereas formerly we could sell them, ten, nay, a hundred times dearer. The price of these things, and of all natural and artificial curiosities, varies very much, according to the number and disposition of the buyers, who may be sure to get cent per cent clear profit by them, at what price soever they buy them. "The yearly sum to the value of which the Dutch are permitted to sell goods imported by them is, by Japanese reckoning, three hundred chests of silver, each of a thousand taels, or in gold fifty thousand kobans; the highest value of the koban, as current in Japan, being sixty mas, or six taels. But the Japanese having obliged the Dutch East India Company to accept payment in gold kobans, each reckoned at sixty-eight mas, the sales of the Company, though made to the amount of three hundred thousand taels in silver, produced only fortyfour thousand one hundred and eighteen kobans." A chance was thus afforded, as Kämpfer expresses it "to make the officers concerned in carrying on the Dutch trade some amends for their trouble and hard usage, by allowing them to dispose of goods on their own 323 THE "CAPTAIN OF THE DUTCH " private account," to the value of five thousand six hundred and eighty-two kobans, equivalent, at the reckoning of fifty-eight mas, to forty thousand taels, thus making up the fifty thousand kobans, to the amount of which the annual sale of Dutch goods was limited; and as this arrangement for private trade had been made by the Japanese, the East India Company did not venture to interfere with it. At the head of these officers stands the Director, or, as he is called by the Japanese, Captain of the Dutch (Hollanda Capitan), who has the command, inspection, and care of the trade. The same person is the head of the embassy sent to court once every year; and, according to the custom of the country, he must be relieved after the year is expired. The ships from Batavia bring over his successor, with some few merchants and clerks, to assist during the sale, after which, the old director goes on board, to return to Batavia. The privilege of private trade was, in Kämpfer's time, divided as follows: The acting director could sell to the extent of ten thousand taels; the new director to the extent of seven thousand; his deputy, or the next person after him, to the extent of six thousand. The captains of the ships, the merchants, clerks, &c., shared the remainder, as they happened to be in favor with the chief managers, and the Japanese interpreters. "The day of the Kamban (as they call our sale), which must be determined by the court, drawing near, a list of all the goods is hung up at the gates without our island, written in very large characters, that everybody may read it at a due distance. Meanwhile, the government signifies to the several Otonas of the town, and these to the merchants, who are come hither from diverse parts of the empire, what duty per cent will be laid for the benefit of the inhabitants of Nagasaki, upon each description of our goods, in order to enable them to determine what price they can afford to offer. The day before the Kamban, papers are put up at all the gates of the streets, to invite the merchants to make their appearance the next morning at Deshima, where, for their further information, they find before every house a list of the goods laid up in it. As the direction of our trade is entirely in the hands of the government of Nagasaki, so, particularly, the Kamban cannot be held but in presence of two stewards of the governors, authorized by them to assist at it. The chief officers of our island must likewise be present. The first interpreter presides, and directs everything, while our own triumvirs — I mean the two directors, the old and new - and the deputy director, have little or nothing to say. "All persons who must be present at the sale having met together, our directors order samples of all our goods to be exposed to view, and then give a signal with a gum-gum, a sort of flat bell, not unlike a basin, for the merchants to come in. The house where the sale is kept is a very neat building, built at the Company's expense, and is then, by removing the shutters, laid open towards the street for people to look in. There is a small gallery round it, and it is divided within into several partitions, very commodiously contrived for this act. "The sale itself is performed in the following manner. Only one sort of goods is put up at a time. Those who have a mind to buy them give in some tickets, each signed by feigned names, and signifying how much they intend to give for a piece, or a katti, of the article on sale. I took notice that every merchant gives in several tickets. KAMBAN, OR PUBLIC SALE 325 This is done in order to see how matters are like to go, and to keep to a less price in case he repents of the greater, for which purpose they are signed only by feigned names; and, because of the great number and subdivision of the small coin, it seldom happens that two tickets exactly agree. After all the bidders have given in their tickets, our directors proceed to open and assort them. They are then delivered to the presiding chief interpreter, who reads them aloud, one after another, beginning with the highest. He asks after the bidder three times, and, if there is no answer made, he lays that ticket aside and takes the next to it. So he goes on, taking always a less, till the bidder cries out, 'Here I am,' and then draws near to sign the note, and to put his true name to it with black ink, which the Japanese always carry about them. The goods first put up being sold, they proceed to others, which they sell in the same manner; and so they go on till the sum determined by the emperor hath been raised, which is commonly done in two or three, seldom in four, days of sale. The day after each Kamban the goods are delivered to the buyer, and carried off. A company of merchants of the five imperial cities have obtained the monopoly for buying and selling raw silks, of which they would fain oblige us to make up at least one-third of our cargoes. "The duty or custom levied upon goods has been introduced at Nagasaki, merely with an intent to take off part of the vast profits which foreigners get upon their commodities, and to assign them for the use and maintenance of the poorer inhabitants of the town, among whom it is distributed in proportion to the trouble they must be at, on account of the public offices they must serve by turns. They commonly receive in this |