ABSTRACT
Japan’s Tokugawa rulers established an exclusionary policy towards all foreigners that was to last until the 1850s. There was, however, one foreign physician who wrote extensively on Japanese culture and who penned the following in 1692 of Osaka:
Osacca is one of the five Imperial Cities. It is both commodiously and agreeably situated in the Province Setzu, in a fruitful Plain and on the banks of a navigable river…its length from West to East, that is, from the suburbs to the…castle, is between three and four thousand common paces…
The river is narrow indeed, but deep and navigable. From its mouth, up as far as Osacca, and higher, there are seldom less than a thousand boats, going up and down, some with merchants, others with the Princes and Lords of the Empire, who live to the West of Osacca…. The banks are rais’d on both sides into ten or more steps, coarsely hewn of freestone, so that they look like one continued stairs, and one may land wherever one pleases. Stately bridges are laid over the river at every three or four hundred paces distance, more or less, all of which are built of…the best cedar-wood of the country. They are rail’d on both sides, and some of the rails adorn’d at the top with brass buttons…
The houses are, according to the standing laws and custom of the country, not above two stories high, each story of one fathom and a half, or two fathoms. They are built of wood, lime and clay…
Osacca is extremely popular, and…can raise an army of 80,000 men, only from among its Inhabitants. It is the best trading town in Japan, being extraordinarily well-situated for carrying on a commerce both by land and water.
