Kaempfer's Japan Tokugawa Culture Observed

Engelbert Kaempfer (September 16, 1651 – November 2, 1716) was a German traveller and physician

He was born at Lemgo in the principality of Lippe, Westphalia, where his father was a pastor. He studied at Hameln, Lüneburg, Hamburg, Lübeck and Gdansk, and after graduating Ph.D. at Kraków, spent four years at Königsberg in Prussia, studying medicine and natural science

In 1681 he visited Uppsala in Sweden, where he was offered inducements to settle; but his desire for foreign travel led him to become secretary to the embassy which Charles XI sent through Russia to Persia in 1683. He reached Persia by way of Moscow, Kazan and Astrakhan, landing at Nizabad in Dagestan after a voyage in the Caspian Sea; from Shemakha in Shirvan he made an expedition to the Baku peninsula, being perhaps the first modern scientist to visit these fields of eternal fire. In 1684 he arrived in Isfahan, then the Persian capital. When after a stay of more than a year the Swedish embassy prepared to return, Kaempfer joined the fleet of the Dutch East India Company in the Persian Gulf as chief surgeon, and in spite of fever caught at Bander Abbasi he found opportunity to see something of Arabia and of many of the western coast-lands of India.



Japan
In September 1689 he reached Batavia; spent the following winter in studying Javanese natural history; and in May 1690 set out for Japan as physician to the embassy sent yearly to that country by the Dutch. The ship in which he sailed touched at Siam, whose capital he visited; and in September 1690 he arrived at the coast of Nagasaki, the only Japanese port then open to foreigners.

Kaempfer stayed two years in Japan, during which he twice visited Tokyo and the Shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi there. When he visited Buddhist monks in Nagasaki in February 1691, he was the first western scientist to describe the tree Ginkgo biloba, scientists at the time previously thought that all Ginkgo species were extinct. He brought some Ginkgo seeds back that was planted in the botanical garden in Utrecht and can still be seen today. During his stay in Japan, his adroitness, insinuating manners and medical skill overcame the habitual jealousy and reticence of the natives, and enabled him to elicit much valuable information. In November 1692 he left Japan for Java and Europe, and in October 1693 he landed at Amsterdam. Receiving the degree of M.D. at Leiden, he settled down in his native city, becoming also physician to the count of Lippe. He died at Lemgo.



Here are some of extracts from his book:
A Description of Post Stations, Inns, Roadside Food and Tea Stalls Shuku, or Post Stations

The most important towns and villages along our highway all have a station, operating under the territorial lord, where one can always obtain at a fixed price many horses, porters, runners, and whatever else may be necessary for the journey. Incoming and tired horses and men, or those who have been hired only up to this point, can be replaced here.


All necessities are available, and the inns are comfortable at these places of exchange or post stations, called shuku in Japanese, and so traveling processions will stop only here. The stations are located at a distance of one and a half to four miles from each other. But they are not furnished so properly and comfortably on our shorter overland trip in Kyushu as on the main island of Japan, where we pass fifty-six between Osaka and Edo. The stations are not set up as inns but are merely for stabling horses. There is an open space in front where the transfer takes place so that the public streets are kept clear. The stations have many scribes and accountants, who note down everything accurately and render accounts to the administration of the territorial lord.

Prices are fixed throughout the country, and those between each shuku are calculated not only according to the distance but also according to whether the road is difficult or easy, whether the animals' fodder is expensive or cheap, and other factors.

On an average, one pays the following prices for each mile: for one norikake, that is, a horse to ride loaded with two packs and bedding, 33 zeni; for one karajiri, that is, a saddled horse only, 25 zeni; for each porter of a kago or other burden, 19 zeni. Couriers are available day and night to transport letters of the shogun and the territorial lords. The letters are handed to the next courier as soon as they arrive and are thus carried to the next post station with uninterrupted running. They are handed over in a small, black lacquered box, painted with the crest of the sender, and are attached to a pole carried across the shoulder. These messengers always run in twos, so that if one has an accident, the other can take his place and hurry on to deliver the box. If letters of His Majesty, the shogun, are contained in the box, everybody, even the procession of a territorial lord, must move to the side and let the courier pass without obstruction. The couriers make a certain sound to give notice of this from afar.

Inns
Our highway is well supplied with inns. The best ones are found in those post stations that are so well furnished that even the important lords on their annual journey to and from Edo stop here and occupy rooms. Like other well-built houses, they have only one storey, and if there is an upper floor, it is low and perfumed. They are as wide as ordinary residential buildings but are very deep or long, sometimes forty fathoms. At the back they end in a tsubo, that is, a house or pleasure garden,...