INTERCOLONIAL COMMERCE. 319 putation for bravery and docility, that, they were the principal Asiatic soldiers employed by the Eu- ropean nations. The specific commodities which Japan is either capable of affording, or actually does afford, for ex- portation, are gold, silver, copper, tutenague, iron, camphor, ambergris, tea, rice, soy, wrought silks, lacquered-ware, and earthenware. The imports are raw and wrought silks, cotton goods, woollens, glass-w,are, hardware, quicksilver, antimony, ore of ^inc or calamine, cinnabar, amber, coral, and pearls, dressed and undressed hides, sandal and sapan wood, Malayan camphor, ivory, alum, cloves, mace, pep- per, raw sugar, coffee, and tea. I shall offer a few remarks upon the most important of these. Japan, rather a sterile than a fertile country, as al- ready observed, is more remarkable for its mineral than vegetable wealth. When Europeans became first acquainted with that empire, there appears to have been a great accumulation of the precious metals within it. The mines were probably very fertile, and from this circumstance, — the low price of labour in Japan — the industry and skill of its in- habitants — and there being no outlet for gold and silver, these metals were at a much lower value than in other countries. They constituted, of course, the principal article of exportation. It has been already stated, on the authority of Kannpfer,
