Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 8.djvu/195



AEMPFER, writing of Kyōtō—or Miako (capital), as he calls it—in 1690, says: "Miako is the great magazine of all Japanese manufactures and commodities, and the chief mercantile town in the Empire. There is scarce a house in this large capital where there is not something made or sold. Here they refine copper, coin money, print books, weave the richest stuffs with gold and silver flowers. The best and scarcest dyes, the most artful carvings, all sorts of musical instruments, pictures, japanned cabinets, all sorts of things wrought in gold and other metals, particularly in steel, as the best tempered blades and other arms, are made here in the utmost perfection, as are also the richest dresses and after the best fashion, all sorts of toys, puppets moving their heads of themselves, and numberless other things too many to be here mentioned. In short, there is nothing can be thought of but what may be found at Miako, and nothing, though never so neatly wrought, can be imported from abroad but what some artist or other in this capital will undertake to imitate it. Considering this, it is no wonder that the manufactures of Miako are become so famous throughout the Empire as to be easily preferred to all others, though perhaps inferior in some particulars, only because they