Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T20:37:41.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

European japanology at the end of the seventeenth century1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

P. F. Kornicki
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Attaining just a glimmer of an understanding of Chinese or Japanese in the seventeenth century required prodigious feats of imagination and the abandonment of widely-held convictions about the nature of language. Progress towards a rational and sophisticated understanding was held up by persuasive but fantastical theories to which lifetimes were devoted in vain. In their very different ways both languages were subversive of contemporary notions of language, and the conceptual frameworks for adequate descriptions had to be generated from scratch. The difficulties can scarcely be overestimated: the Chinese language was vigorously attacked in 1678 as the language of the devil on the ground that its pictographic nature would occasion a breach of the Second Commandment if the name of God were written, and the following year Leibniz drew up a list of questions concerning Chinese which ask, among other things, ‘whether the Chinese language was artificially constructed, or whether it has grown and changed by usage like other languages’. Japanese attracted less interest, but the difficulty of the two languages was legendary: in 1708 the Dutch scholar Adrian Reland (1676–1718), who published numerous works on Persian, Jewish and Islamic studies, wrote of the immense numbers of characters to be learnt by anybody who wished to know Chinese or Japanese, with awe at the thought that ‘a man's life would scarcely suffice to attain perfect knowledge of one language’.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , October 1993 , pp. 502 - 524
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

2 On the effects of contemporary views of language on early sinology, see David, E. Mungello, Curious land: Jesuit accommodation and the origins of sinology, Studia Leibnitiana Supplementa 25 (Stuttgart, 1985), 34–6, 174–207Google Scholar.

3 Donald, F. Lach, ‘The Chinese studies of Andreas Müller’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 60, 1940, 568–9, 573, and Mungello, Curious land, 199–200Google Scholar.

4 Adrian, Reland, Dissertalionum Miscellanearum Pars Tertia (Utrecht, 1708), 103Google Scholar.

5 William, Marsden, A catalogue of Dictionaries, Vocabularies, Grammars, and Alphabets (London, 1796), 104–5Google Scholar. One of the works listed, which I have regrettably been unable to consult, is Charles, Vallancey, The Chinese and Japanese languages collated with the Irish (Dublin, 1782)Google Scholar. Some years later Marsden, evidently decided to separate the two, and in his Bibliotheca Marsdeniana Philologica et Orientalist A catalogue of books and manuscripts collected with a view to the general comparison of languages, and to the study of oriental literature (London, 1827)Google Scholar, Japanese appears in its own section along with the languages of Ryukyu, Korea and Formosa. Marsden, seems to have been in correspondence with the japanologist Isaac Titsingh: Cérémonies usitées au Japon pour les mariages et les funérailles (Paris, 1819), viiiGoogle Scholar. On Chinese books and sinology, see Barrett, T. H., Singular listlessness: a short history of Chinese books and British scholars (London, 1989)Google Scholar, Duyvendak, J. J. L., ‘Early Chinese studies in Holland’, T'oung Pao, 32, 1936, 298–344Google Scholar, and Eva, Kraft, ‘Die chinesische Büchersammlung des Grossen Kurfürsten und seines Nachfolgers’, in China und Europa: Chinaverstdnänis und Chinamode im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Exhibition catalogue; Berlin, 1973)Google Scholar.

6 In The traditional history of the Chinese script from a seventeenth century Jesuit manuscript (Århus, 1988), 42–53Google Scholar, Knut Lundbaek discusses the popular sources used by the Jesuit author of an unpublished essay on the Chinese script contained in the original manuscript of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus.

7 I have shown how Aston, the British consular official who published a series of influential textbooks, progressed in his understanding of the language in ‘William George Aston’, in Cortazzi, H. and Daniels, G. (ed.), Britain and Japan, 1859–1991: themes and personalities (London, 1991), 64–75Google Scholar.

8 In German, however, it had been used in 1857: see Josef, Kreiner, ‘Reflections on the question of a distinctive “Austrian approach” within German japanology’, Japan Forum, 3, 1991, 199Google Scholar.

9 For recent work on Pfizmaier, see Peter, Pantzer, August Pfizmaier, 1808–1887 (exhibition catalogue; Vienna, 1987);Google Scholar on de, Rosny, see Comment Léon de Rosny, homme du Nord, découvrit I'Empire du soleil levant, 1837–1914 (exhibition catalogue; Lille, 1986);Google Scholar noteworthy among recent work on Siebold is Eberhard, Friese, Philipp Franz von Siebold als früher Exponent der Ostasienwissenschaften: Ein Beitrag zur Orientalismusdiskussion und zur Geschichte der europäischjapanischen Begegnung (Hamburg, 1986);Google Scholar and on Titsingh, Frank Lequin (ed.), The private correspondence of Isaac Titsingh, vol. 1 (1785–1811) (Amsterdam, 1990)Google Scholar. See also Frits, Vos, ‘Mihatenu yume—an unfinished dream: Japanese studies until 1940’, in Willem, Otterspeer (ed.), Leiden oriental connections, 1850–1940 (Leiden, 1989), 354–77Google Scholar.

10 Bodart Bailey, Beatrice M., ‘Kaempfer Restor'd’, Monumenta Nipponica, 43, 1988, 33;Google Scholar similarly, an exhibition held at the British Library in 1991–92 was entitled, ‘Engelbert Kaempfer, the first European interpreter of Japan’. Bodart Bailey is preparing a new translation from Kaempfer's original manuscript in the British Library.

11 The former is British Library Sloane MSS 3064, ff. 50–1, and the latter, the ‘Miyako Manuscript’, is in my possession.

12 Engelbert, Kaempfer, The history of Japan, translated by Scheuchzer, J. G., 2 vols. (London, 1727), Author's preface, 11Google Scholar. On the shortcomings of Scheuchzer's translation see Bodart, Bailey, ‘Kaempfer Restor'd’, 1–33Google Scholar.

13 Iwao, Seiichi, Nan'yō nihonmachi no kenkyū (Tokyo, 1966), 301Google Scholar and passim; Murakami, N., ‘The Japanese at Batavia in the xvnth century’, Monumenta Nipponica, 2, 1939, 355–73Google Scholar.

14 van der Pas, Peter W., ‘Japanese students of mathematics at the University of Leiden during the Sakoku period’, Janus, 61, 1974, 271–9Google Scholar. On Hartsinck, see Iwao, S., ‘The life of Pieter Hartsinck, the Japanner (1637–1680); “grand pupil” of Descartes’, Transactions of the Asiatic-Society of Japan, 3rd series, 20, 1985, 145–67Google Scholar.

15 By contrast, it appears that Witsen and others were fully aware, a few decades later, of the value of the rare Chinese visitor to Europe. See Leonard, Blussé, ‘Doctor at sea: Chou Mei-Yeh's voyage to the West (1710–1711)’, in Erika de, Poorter (ed.), As the twig is bent …: essays in honour of Frits Vos (Amsterdam, 1990), 7–30; n. 10, p. 27Google Scholar cites further material on Chinese visitors to seventeenth-century Europe.

16 Izumi, Tytler, ‘The Japanese Collection in the Bodleian Library’, in Yu-Ying, Brown (ed.), Japanese Studies, British Library Occasional Papers, 11 (London, [1991]), 114;Google ScholarNozomu, Hayashi and Peter, Kornicki, Early Japanese books in Cambridge University Library: a catalogue of the Aston, Satow and von Siebold Collections (Cambridge, 1991), 1–2Google Scholar.

17 According to the auction catalogue of his possessions, Catalogus Van een Heerlyk Kabinet Met Oost-Indische en andere Konstwerken en Rariteyten … (Amsterdam, 1728), 10–13;Google Scholar for the botanical drawings, see British Library Add. MSS 5018 and Oxford Forestry Institute, Sherard MSS 253–5. On Witsen see Marion Peters, ‘Nicolaas Witsen and Gijsbert Cuper: two seventeenth-century Dutch burgomasters and their gordian knot’, Lias, 16, 1989, 111–50Google Scholar, and Rietbergen, P.J.A.N., ‘Witsen's world: Nicolaas Witsen (1641–1717) between the Dutch East India Company and the Republic of Letters’, Itinerario, 9, 1985, 121–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 ‘Catalogus Librorum Sinicorum … Andreae Mülleri Greiffenhagii’, in Wilhelm Ernst, Tentzel (ed.), Monalliche Unterredungen einiger guten Freunde von allerhand Büchem, vol. [9] (March 1697), 186, 189;Google Scholar‘Catalogus Sinicorum & aliorum Orientalium rariorum librorum & Manuscriptorum’, in David Fridericus, Ebert, Historiam Bibliothecae Templi Collegiati B. Mariae Dicati (Stettin, c. 1783), ixGoogle Scholar. On Müller's oriental books, see Edward, KajdaŁski, ‘A search for Andreas Müller's Chinese manuscripts in Poland’, Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal [formerly China Mission Studies 1550–1800 Bulletin], 11, 1989, 15–27Google Scholar. In a letter to Witsen printed in the 1695 edition of his Opuscula Nonnulla Orientalia Müller expresses his thanks to Witsen for having lent him Japanese and Chinese books: I am grateful to Mr. Edward KajdaŁski for having drawn this to my attention and for having copied the passage for me from a copy in Warsaw University Library.

19 Kaempfer, History, iv, xlvii-li; Gardner, K. B., ‘Engelbert Kaempfer's Japanese Library’, Asia Major, n.s., 7, 1962, 74–8;Google ScholarYu-Ying, Brown, ‘Kaempfer's album of famous sights of seventeenth-century Japan’, British Library Journal, 15, 1989, 90–103;Google ScholarKawase, Kazuma, ‘Daiei toshokan no Kenperu shōraibon’, Shoshigaku, 35–6, 1985, 18–39Google Scholar. Many of these books are illustrated in the recent exhibition catalogue Doitsujin no mita genroku jidai—Kenperu-ten (1990).

20 Gebhard, J. F., Het Leven van Mr. Nicolaas Cornelisz Witsen (1641–1717), 2 vols. (Utrecht, 1881–1882), II, 363–3Google Scholar. On Chinese books in England at this time, see Barrett, , Singular listlessness,35–9. The largest collection was undoubtedly that of the Great Elector, Friedrich Wilhelm: Kraft, ‘Die chinesische Bchersammlung’Google Scholar.

21 For details of works by the missionaries on Japanese, see Johannes, Laures, Kirishitan Bunko: a manual of books and documents on the early Christian missions in Japan, 3rd edition (Tokyo, 1957);Google ScholarMichael, Cooper, Rodrigues the interpreter: an early Jesuit in Japan and China (New York, 1974), ch. xi;Google ScholarTadao, Doi, ‘Das Sprachstudium der Gesellschaft Jesu im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert’, Monumenta Nipponica, 2, 1939, 437–65;Google ScholarDoi, , Kirishitan gogaku no kinkyū (Osaka, 1971);Google Scholar and Moran, J. F., ‘The language barrier and the early Jesuits in Japan’, Stirling Occasional Papers on Japan, IV, 1992Google Scholar.

22 Collado, , Ars Grammalicae laponicae Linguae (Rome, 1632)Google Scholar and Diclionarium sive Thesauri Linguae Iaponicae Compendium (Rome, 1632)Google Scholar.

23 See the description of the manuscript Alphabetum Japonicum, et exemplare, preserved at the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome, in Laures, Kirishitan Bunko, 103–4Google Scholar.

24 Claude, Duret, Thresor de I'Histoire des langues de cest univers, first edition (Cologny, 1613) and 2nd edition (Yverdon, 1619), 909–22Google Scholar.

25 Georg, Meister, Der Orientalisch-Indianische Kunst– und Lust-gärtner (Dresden, 1692), plate facing p. 36Google Scholar.

26 Kaempfer, , History, II, 394;Google Scholar the dates of Buijtenhem's residences in Japan, according to Kokushi daijiten, n (Tokyo, 1989), 938Google Scholar, were: 1684.10.28–1685.10.18, 1687.10.25–1688.10.13, 1690.10.21–1691.11.9, 1692.10.29–1693.10.19.

27 British Library, Sloane MSS 3064, ff. 15–16.

28 Peters, ‘Nicolaas Witsen and Gijsbert Cuper’, 112.

29 Karl, Meier-Lemgo, Die Briefe Engelben Kaempfers, Ak. der Wiss. und der Lit. Abhandlungen der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Kl. 1965, Nr. 6 (Mainz), 278–9Google Scholar.

30 Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, VII (1927), col. 654;Google ScholarEncyclopedie van Nederlandsche Indie, second edition (The Hague & Leiden, 1918), n, 177;Google ScholarPeters, , ‘Nicolaas Witsen and Gijsbert Cuper’, 112–13Google Scholar. The only detailed account of de Jager's life is Leupe, P. A., ‘Herbert de Jager’, Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie, Nieuw volgreeks part iv, 1862, 17–22Google Scholar, and 3rd volgreeks part iv, 1869, 67–97.

31 Gebhardt, Het Leven, II, 361. In the Algemeen Rijksarchief in The Hague there survives a letter (Aanwinsten Eerste Afdeling 1878) concerning the despatch of de Jager's papers to Holland in 1695, but a note on the back by P. A. Leupe, author of the articles cited in note 30 above, laments, ‘Found by me in the attic. Where have the important collections of Herbert de Jager gone?’ I am grateful to Dr. B. J. Slot for having drawn this letter to my attention and for having sent me a photocopy and transcription.

32 According to a letter written by Cuper, who had visited Witsen's house, to Pieter Valckenier (Koninklijke Bibliotheek Den Haag, 72.C.31/1709). I am indebted to Marion Peters for a transcription of this letter. A letter of Witsen to Cuper in 1713 says that de Jager ‘understood all oriental languages’: Gebhardt, , Het Leven, II, 361Google Scholar.

33 British Library, Sloane MSS 3064, ff. 15–16.

34 Peters, , ‘Nicolaas Witsen and Gijsbert Cuper’, 112–13Google Scholar.

35 On Rumphius, see Coats, Alice M., The quest for plants: a history of the horticultural explorers (London, 1969), 201Google Scholar and Leupe, P. A., ‘Georgius Everardus Rumphius, Ambonsch Natuurkundige der zeventiende eeuw’, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, 12, 1871, section 3, 1–63;Google Scholar his correspondence, translated into Latin, is contained in ‘India Literata’, in Michael Bernard, Valentini, Historia Simplicium Reformata (Frankfurt, 1716), 381–431Google Scholar. British Library, Sloane MSS 2091, f. 174, contains an extract of a letter on hotanical matters from de Jager to him dated 25 February 1689.

36 Müller, Kurt, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz und Nicolaas Witsen, Sitzungsberichte der Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Berlin, 1955), 44–45;Google ScholarAdami, Norbert R., Eine schwerige Nachbarschaft: Die Geschichte der russisch-japanisch Beziehungen, I ‘Von den Anfängen bis zum Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts’ (Munich, 1990), 10, 107–10Google Scholar.

37 On Camphuis, see Stellingwerf, J., ‘De betekenis van de gouverneur-generaal J. Camphuis voor het Japanboek van E. Kaempfer’, in Boek, Bibliotheek en geesteswetenschappen. Opstellen, door vrienden en collega's van dr. C. Reedijk geschreven ter gelegenheid van zijn aftreden als bibliothecarius van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek te's-Gravenhage (Hilversum, 1986), 290–98Google Scholar, and Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, VI (1927), cols. 662–4Google Scholar.

38 On ten Rhyne see Bowers, John Z., Western medical pioneers in feudal Japan (Baltimore, 1970), 31–8;Google ScholarRoemer, L.S.A.M. von, Historical sketches: an introduction to the Fourth Congress of the Far Eastern Association of Tropical Medicine (Batavia, 1921), 48–53, 85–7;Google ScholarIwao, Seiichi, ‘A Dutch doctor in old Japan’, Japan Quarterly, 8, 1961, 170–8;Google ScholarYasuo, Ōtsuka, ‘Nihon ni okeru Willem ten Rhyne’, in Ogata, Tomio (ed.), Rangaku to nihon bunka (Tokyo, 1971), 251–9;Google ScholarSchoute, Dirk, Occidental therapeutics in the Netherlands East Indies during three centuries of Netherlands settlement 1600–1900 (Batavia, 1937), 47–9Google Scholar. The standard biography, which has little to say on his time in Japan, is Dorsson, J.M.R. van, ‘Willem ten Rhyne’, in Geneeskundig tijdschrift van Nederlandsch Indie, 52, 1911, 134–228Google Scholar.

39 Breynius, Jacobus, Exoticarum aliarumque minus cognitarum plantarum centuria prima (Danzig, 1678), 11–13Google Scholar and ten Rhyne's appendix to this work, ‘Excerpta ex observationibus suis Japonicis physicis etc. de Fructice Thee’; Kaempfer acknowledged the value of ten Rhyne's observations, and made good some omissions, in History, Appendix, 1–20Google Scholar. Ten Rhyne published his observations on acupuncture and moxibustion in his work on gout, Dissertatio de arthritide (London, 1683)Google Scholar and as an appendix to Steven Blanckhaert's Verhandelinge van het podagra en vliegende jigt (Amsterdam, 1684; German translation published at Leipzig, 1690)Google Scholar. On the Dissertatio de arthritide, see Bowers, , 35–6Google Scholar, and G. T. Haneveld, ‘The introduction of acupuncture into Western Medicine: the influence of Japanese and Dutch physicians’, in Beukers, H. et al.,, Red-hair medicine: Dutch-Japanese medical relations (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1991), 53–4Google ScholarPubMed and the works cited therein.

40 Kraft, Eva S., Andreas Cleyer: Tagebuch des Kontors zu Nagasaki auf der Insel Deshima, Bonner Zeitschrift für Japanologie, 6 (Bonn, 1985);Google Scholarvan der Pas, Peter W., ‘The earliest European descriptions of Japan's flora’, Janus, 61, 1974, 281–95Google ScholarPubMed. On the dispute with ten Rhyne, see Kraft, , Andreas Cleyer, 52–4, and Bowers, , 37–8. Some of Kaempfer's letters to Cleyer have survived from the years 1685–91 in British Library, Sloane MSS 3063 ff. 34b, 138a, 78a & 93bGoogle Scholar.

41 Beckmann, Johann, Litteratur der alteren Reisebeschreibungen, I (Gottingen, 1808), 691–704Google Scholar. Meister, George, Der Orienlalisch-Indianische Kunst- und Lust-gärtner (Dresden, 1692)Google Scholar.

42 For discussion of the view that part of Kaempfer's history was in fact written by Camphuis, see Bailey, Bodart, ‘Kaempfer Restor'd’, 7–8Google Scholar, Stellingwerf, J., ‘De betekenis’, and Kiyoko, Ida, ‘Kenperu Nihonshi no mō hitori no chosha ni tsuite’, Shisō, December 1978, 82–104Google Scholar. The first to make this claim was Haren, Onno Zwier van in Het leven van Joannes Camphuis (Zwolle, 1772)Google Scholar, a work which I have not been able to consult; there does appear to be some evidence to suggest that Camphuis gave Kaempfer help which was not acknowledged by the latter, but this issue has not yet been satisfactorily resolved.

43 I purchased this manuscript at a bookshop in Cambridge in 1988. Before that it had belonged to a doctor who in turn had purchased it at Probsthain's in London some time, he thought, in the 1970s.

44 Kaempfer himself mentions the purchase of local products in Kyoto on his way to and from Edo, : History, 549, 598Google Scholar.

45 See Ishikawa, Matsutarō (ed.), Nihon kyōkasho taikei, VII (Tokyo, 1970), 153–7Google Scholar, and Bekkan (1972), 120–26; Shidō, Bunko (ed.), (Edo jidai) Shorin shuppan shojaku mokuroku shūsei, 4 vols. (Tokyo, 1962–64), I, 51, 108, 150, 205, 220, 313; II, 50, 103, 184, 281; III, 37, 214;Google ScholarKokusho sōmokuroku, VI, 266; Kotenseki sōgō mokuroku, II, 199.

46 Doitsujin no mita Genroku jidai: Kenperu-ten, 9, 145–6;Google ScholarMeister, Georg, Der Orientalisch-Indianische Kunst- und Lust-gärtner, plate facing p. 36Google Scholar.

47 These questions will be considered in detail in a separate article. Suffice it to say here that the writer was almost certainly the Polish traveller and scholar Count Jan Potocki (1750–1815), who accompanied the German orientalist and polyglot Julius Klaproth (1783–1835) on the illfated Russian embassy to China in 1805–6 and at Irkutsk met Shinzō, a Japanese castaway who taught Japanese there and was baptized with the name Nicolas Kolotygin. It is not clear, however, how Potocki knew about the book's history and there is nothing to confirm his claim that Witsen himself had copied it.

48 Ebert, David Fridericus, Historiam Bibliothecae Templi Collegiati B. Mariae Dicati, p. xGoogle Scholar. On Müller's library and this catalogue, see E. KajdaŁski, ‘A search for Andreas Müller's Chinese manuscripts in Poland’.

49 ‘Catalogus Librorum Sinicorum aliorumque praeterea rariorum, maximeque Manuscriptorum, Andreae Mülleri Greiffenhagii’, in Wilhelm Ernst, Tentzel (ed.), Monatliche Unterredungen einiger guten Freunde von allherhand Büchern …, [Vol. 9], March 1697, 186Google Scholar.

50 ibid., 189; A. Müller, ‘Er曶ffnungsrede’, Zeilschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 35, 1881, XVI. The year 1684 is not impossibly early, for either ten Rhyne or Cleyer could have supplied Müller with the necessary information via Witsen.

51 Alphabeta ac Notae Diversarum Linguarum (Berlin, 1703)Google Scholar, ‘Syllabarium Japanicum’ (unpaginated). The quirky forms of some of the kana signs closely resemble each other in M and Müller's work and Müller appears to reproduce some of the errors in the roman transcriptions of some of the kana in Further, M., he describes this syllabary as ‘Syllabarium Japanicum e Ms. Meakensi’, and it seems likely that Meakensis is a Latin adjectival nonce-formation for Miyako: it does not appear in Graesse, Benedict and PlechPs Orbis Latinus (Braunschweig, 1972)Google Scholar.

52 Reland, Dissertationum Miscellanearum Pars Tertia, 109–14Google Scholar. On the glossary see Duyvendak, , ‘Early Chinese studies in Holland’, 321–4Google Scholar.

53 Kaempfer, , Amoenitatum Exoticarum Politico-Physico-Medicarum Fasicculi V (Lemgo, 1712), 767–9;Google Scholar this passage is no more than a part of the preface to Kaempfer's long account of the flora of Japan.

54 Blussé, Leonard, ‘Doctor at sea: Chou Mei-Yeh's voyage to the West (1710–11)’, 8–9Google Scholar.

55 Bodart Bailey, ‘Kaempfer Restor'd’, 1, 14.

56 Ramming, Martin, Reisen schiffbrütichiger Japaner im xvIII Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1931)Google Scholar.

57 Kraft, Eva, ‘Frühe chinesische Studien in Berlin’, Medizinhistorisches Journal, XI, 1976, 97Google Scholar.

58 See the letters in British Library Sloan MSS 2091, ff. 171–4. and in Valentini, Hisloriu Simplicium Reformata, 381–431 and 493–4; Breynius, Exoticarum, passim; Kaempfer, Amoenitatum, 466–505, 766–912.

59 British Museum, Sloane MSS 3064, f. 15.

60 This ‘Chinese book’ probably refers to an edition of the encyclopedia Kinmō zui, which Kaempfer, had acquired in the edition of 1688 (Bodart Bailey, ‘Kaempfer Restor'd’, 29)Google Scholar.

61 There is little in Kaempfer's, History concerning the Japanese writing system, except for plate 45 in vol. II, although there is rather more in his Amoenitatum, 767–9Google Scholar.

62 Properly a vocabulary or word-list, but it seems that de Jager had something specific in mind. A ‘Nomenclator Sinicus’ is included in Andreas Müller's Catalogus Librorum Sinicorum Bibliothecae Electorate Brandenburgicae, reproduced in Hüllle, Hermann, ‘Die Fortschritte der Ostasiatischen Sammlung’, Fünfzehn Jahre K曶nigliche und Staatsbibliothek (Berlin, 1921), 193Google Scholar. It should be noted that Chinese books could be acquired in Batavia, for Witsen mentions in his letters to Gijsbert Cuper having acquired a Chinese dictionary and other books from there: Gebhard, , Het Leven, n, 341, 362–3Google Scholar. They were, however, also available in Nagasaki, as Kaempfer himself mentions, and it must be supposed that they could be purchased by the Dutchmen at Nagasaki, either directly or through a Japanese assistant like that used by Kaempfer, : see Kaempfer, , History, I, 379;Google Scholar for records of the book trade between Japan and China, see Yōko, Nagazumi, Tōsen yushutsunyūhin sōryo ichiran 163–1833 nen (Tokyo, 1987), 96–9 and 348Google Scholar, and Osamu, Ōba, (Edo jidai ni okeru) Tōsen mochiwatashisho no kinkyū (Suita, 1967)Google Scholar.

63 Hai-pien (Haibian ) is the name of a genre of popular Chinese dictionaries or orthographical handbooks published in the Ming dynasty; although of very little scholarly value, they were well known in contemporary Europe. See Lundbaek, Knud, T. S. Bayer (1694–1738): Pioneer sinologist, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series, 54 (London and Malmo, 1986), 198–200, and The traditional history of the Chinese script, 29Google Scholar.

64 cf. Kaempfer, , History, I, 382–91 and plate 20Google Scholar.

65 Although the almanac might refer to a koyomi or a setsuyōshū, the following two items have no obvious equivalents in Japan and probably represent de Jager's extrapolation to Japan from European publishing practices.

66 Possibly Nihon ōdai ichiran (1663), but this was commonly published in seven volumes.

67 Not identified, but the ‘here’ indicates that he was a Batavia resident.

68 According to Breynius, Exoticarum, 11–13, ten Rhyne had sent to Europe a branch of arbor camphorifera japonica in 1674Google Scholar.

69 Kaempfer's observations on paper-making are contained in Amoenitatum, 466–78, and are translated in History, Appendix, 21–8Google Scholar.

70 The Dutch has ‘Namrak’: in Nagazumi Yōko, Tōsen, 388, ‘namrack’ is identified as black lacquer; in Kaempfer, Amoenitatum, 793, ‘Nam-Rack’ is described as ‘Vernice ignobiliore ex Siamo invecta’; and in Meister, Der Orientalisch-Indianische Kunst- und Lust-gärtner, 277, ‘Namrack’ is identified as a product bought by Japanese from the DutchGoogle Scholar.

71 cf. Kaempfer, , History, I, 114, and Amoenitatum, 792Google Scholar.

72 cf. Kaempfer, , History, II, appendix, 46–52Google Scholar.

73 This is Joan Huydecoper (1625–1704). He was burgomaster of Amsterdam, a director of the VOC and a commissioner of the botanical garden at Amsterdam. See Elias, Johan E., De Vroedschap van Amsterdam, 1578–1795 (Amsterdam, 1963; reprint of Haarlem edition of 1903–5), I, 518Google Scholar.

74 This is probably a reference to bukan, regularly-issued handbooks giving details of the status, chief followers and insignia of bakufu officialdom and the daimyō. Cf. Kaempfer, , History, II, plates 30 and 32Google Scholar.

75 cf. Kaempfer, , History, I, 382 ffGoogle Scholar.

76 cf. Kaempfer, , History, I, 58–81Google Scholar.

77 cf. Kaempfer, , History, II, plates 23–9Google Scholar.

78 cf. Kaempfer, , History, I, plate 19Google Scholar.