but a very small one; the national notions
of insularity and isolation influencing even
their own home voyages; for it is death for
a Japanese to quit his country by design;
perpetual banishment or imprisonment—
should he return—if by such accidents as
shipwreck or kidnapping. This law
naturally makes them afraid to venture far. And
they make mermaids—mermaids as perfect
as any that Barnum got from the Fee-jee
islands, baffling the critical incredulity of
Japanese savants for generations. But the
most wonderful thing of all is their Dosia
powder. Dosia powder does everything. It
is of excellent use in assisting poor tortured
women with whom nature is a laggard, is a
specific for various ailments, gives buoyancy
and delightful gaiety to those who take it in
good health, and, placed in the ears, nose, and
mouth of the dead, prevents the corpse from
stiffening, which is an unhandsome laying-out
in Japan. This Dosia powder is white like
sand; can be used many times, and is a
profound secret religiously kept among the
bonzes. They have a cheap literature and
children's books, works on art and history,
poetry and the drama, together with encyclopedias
in true encyclopedia style. They knew
something of the steam-engine, when they
examined it in the American ships, and made
admirable drawings of every part, correct,
and in proper scale; and they called things by
their right names; as, for instance, they called
the big gun a Paixhan, and knew all about
its calibre and action.

The women are not very pretty; but the
married women are really ugly, from their
horrid habit of dyeing their teeth black. The
men are better looking; and for the most part
both sexes are straight and well made. They
are polite, affable, courteous, and, as private
gentlemen, truthful and honest enough; but
no sooner does the shadow of political life
fall on them than they become untruthful,
crooked, suspicious, and given up to chicanery
and artifice. Polite as they are,  they carry
off the leavings of a feast in the bosom of
their robes and their paper pocket
handkerchiefs; though, when the emperor dies,
they only confess to having "heard that a
great prince had gone." They cultivate their
rice-fields by treading over them on large
pieces of board, and something like
snowshoes, by which they trample into the mud
all the grass, weeds, and brushwood cropping
out, and they grow the best rice in the world.
Their tea is inferior to that of China, and is
grown on any soil whatsoever, waste ground
or what not. The only carefully grown tea
is from Udsi, and is imperial property and
very costly. They grind the leaves, as we
do our coffee-berries, and the rich and luxurious
drink it foaming and very hot. Drinking tea
with grace and propriety is an art in Japan;
and old Kaempfer says that the children
have masters to teach them that art properly,
as we might be taught dancing, bowing,
getting into a carriage, or any other grand
necessity of deportment.

The grave-yards are filled with monuments
inscribed much as ours might be, and flowers,
freshly culled day by day, are placed in cups
and vases all about. They have various
temples for various purposes; in one, a mariners'
temple—perhaps in all—they ring a bell to
waken up their god, and make him attentive
to their  prayers. Their form of worship,
their priests and the mode of their
consecration, some of their tenets, their singing
boys, and their rosaries, are all strangely like
the Roman Catholic; so strangely like that
it was necessary to find a reason for it; wherefore
the first Christian visitors made out
apocryphal stories of still earlier visitors,
who had left behind them shadows—
adumbrations—of the eternal truth. In South
America, on the contrary, the priests said that
the Devil had carried a travestie of the
Romish faith before them. But the Japanese
have attained to a higher degree of mechanical
piety than ever Papist or Protestant dreamed
of: they have a praying wheel, the same as is
to be found in Chinese and Thibetan temples,
and for every revolution of the wheel, and
consequent presentation of the printed prayer,
a Good Mark is set in Heaven to the credit of
the votary, and he is considered to have done
a good work. The fox is their symbol of the
Evil Spirit, and is hunted to death, because
he is his willing agent on earth; and they
have a place of extreme punishment—a den
connected with their jails, called Hell, which
is no bad representation of its prototype.

MR. CHARLES DICKENS
WILL READ
AT ST. MARTIN'S HALL,
On Friday, January 28th, THE POOR TRAVELLER, MRS.
GAMP, and THE TRIAL from PICKWICK.
It has been found unavoidable to appoint TWO MORE
READINGS of THE CHRISTMAS CAROL, and THE TRIAL
from PICKWICK. They will take place
On Thursday, February 3rd; and
On Thursday, February 10th.
The Doors will be open for each Reading at Seven.
Commence at eight exactly.
Places for each Reading: Stalls (numbered and
reserved), Four Shillings; Centre Area and Balconies,
Two Shillings; Back Seats, One Shilling.
Tickets to be had at Messrs. Chapman and Hall's,
Publishers, 198, Piccadilly; and at St. Martin's Hall,
Long Acre.

Now Ready, price 3d., stamped, 4d., THE CHRISTMAS
NUMBER of Household Words, entitled,
A HOUSE TO LET.
Contents:—1. Over the Way. 2. The Manchester
Marriage. 3. Going into Society. 4.Three Evenings in
the House. 5. Trottle's Report. 6. Let at Last
ALSO,
THE NEW YEAR'S NUMBER.