12.
draws of the Japanese eating with single chopsticks (I, viii, 242-3; II, vii, 194), a picture which might be compared with Captain Golovnin's first report, later corrected, that the Japanese ate with "two or three",[1] Cornwallis speaks of the Japanese pressing the knuckles of their hands to their breasts, in greeting or in parting (I, v, 151; ix, 244; x, 269-279), whereas the custom smacks more of China than of Japan. Again, no statement more contrary to Japanese notions of courtesy has ever been made than that "the health is never inquired after" (II, vii, 87), although this assertion also may stem from a past account of Japan.
Again, much of Cornwallis' work is taken up by a charming account of a friendship struck with a native.[2] But the native, his wife, and her friend, bore, according to Cornwallis, the strangely un-Japanese names of Noskotoska, Sondoree, and Tazolee!
That which is foreign to things Japanese is also matched by the erroneous nature of Cornwallis' geographical and topographical knowledge. He is most absurd when he seems to speak of Japan as being separated from Korea by Manchuria (I, Pref., p.v), or when he places Dejima, first in Nagasaki Bay, at a distance from the city of Nagasaki (I, ix, 233), then at
