ABSTRACT
This chapter simply proposes to give the people a glimpse of Japan as it has appeared to Europeans since it was first discovered by three storm-tossed Portuguese sailors about the year 1542. The commencement of European intercourse with Japan may, be taken to be 1542, when three Portuguese adventurers in a Chinese junk were driven by stress of weather on a part of the Japanese coast under the authority of the Prince of Bungo. Down to the nineteenth century the people have to rely for their knowledge of Japan and the Japanese on the narratives of the few travellers who managed to visit that country more or less by stealth or from the information derived from Europeans serving in the Dutch factory at Nagasaki. In 1727 Dr. Kaemfer's work on Japan was published. Kaemfer had been physician to the Dutch factory at Nagasaki, and, accordingly, had some opportunities of studying Japanese life and character.
