specially inscribed or ornamented, one of which is presented to each departing guest if he has behaved liberally in the matter of "tea-money" to mine host. Shops sometimes do likewise. At New Year time, in particular, there is quite a shower of such civilities. When destined as a gift, the towel is generally folded in a piece of paper, which itself bears a suitable inscription, including the donor's address, with the occasional addition now-a-days of his telephone number; for even in such minutiæ, the Japanese of the lower middle class are up to date. Sometimes, instead of the host giving towels to his guests, the process is reversed. This happens notably in the case of pilgrim bands or clubs, who distribute to every inn at which they alight towels inscribed with the club's name, and perhaps a picture of the sacred mountain which is their goal. Towels are even offered to temples by the pious, appropriately inscribed.
Trade. Rarely has the fiat of a prince—a particular edict issued on a particular day—succeeded in deflecting the whole current of a nation's enterprise for over two centuries. This happened in Japan when the country was closed in A.D. 1624, foreigners being expelled, and foreign learning, foreign trade, and foreign travel alike prohibited. Till then the Japanese merchants and adventurers had been a power in Eastern seas. Nor was the commercial instinct theirs alone. The leaders of the nation had been nearly as keen. It is a mistake to suppose that aversion to intercourse with foreigners was an ingrained racial characteristic, or even an official tradition. On the contrary, when the Portuguese first came to Japan in the sixteenth century, both the local Daimyōs in Kyūshū and the central rulers,—notably Hideyoshi the Great,—hastened to welcome the new-comers and their trade. It was only when suspicions arose of nefarious designs upon Japanese national independence that a policy of exclusion was adopted, at first reluctantly and fitfully, then with systematic completeness. By the edict of 1624, all Japanese were forbidden to go abroad, and
