| Engelbert Kaempfer
(1651-1716), received his Doctor of Philosophy at Cracow, then studied
Physick and Natural History for four years at Konigsberg in Prussia.
At the University of Upsala in Sweden he became Secretary to the Swedish
Embassy to Persia (March 1683, O.S.). Travelling by way of Moscow,
Kaempfer began making detailed notes of his observations. After two
years in Persia, he entered into the service of the Dutch East India Company
and finally arrived at the East Indies headquarters at Batavia in September
1689. After eight months of making observations there, he left for
Japan by way of a month and a half stay in Siam.
As Physician to the Embassy at Deshima in Nagasaki harbor, he accompanied the Embassy to an audience before the shogun in Edo. These journeys took place yearly in the Spring after the Dutch East India Company ships had departed Nagasaki harbor, and many presents were given annually to the court. A typical trip would require about a hundred Japanese on foot or horseback to meet all the Embassy's needs, and the expense for the entire round-trip was borne by the Dutch, per the shogun's request. Travel from Nagasaki to Edo took almost one month each way, involving both sea and land crossings. The stay at the capital lasted about three weeks. During this time, two audiences were held before the court of the secular emperor -- as Kaempfer termed the shogun. And during Kaempfer's first stay in Edo, both fire and earthquake were experienced. From the first day of setting out to Edo until his return to Nagasaki, all the Japanese companions and particularly the commander-in-chief were extremely forward in communicating to Kaempfer what uncommon plants they met with, together with the true names, characters and uses, which they diligently enquired into among the natives. Kaempfer was able to freely and visibly fill a box he carried with plants, flowers, and branches of trees which he figured and described, whatever occurred to him remarkable. "The Japanese, a very reasonable and sensible people, and themselves great lovers of plants, look upon Botany, as a study both useful and innocent, which pursuant to the very dictates of reason and law of nature, ought to be encourag'd by every body." Kaempfer's use of medical knowledge and supplies, and the admitted "cordial and plentiful supply of European liquors" in private for the Japanese, gained him access to practically any topic he desired. His assigned young servant was given by Kaempfer a competent knowledge of the Dutch language and the very discreet servant, in return, managed to supply him with any book he desired. This provided him with a complete history of Japan. Kaempfer left Japan at the end of October 1692, arriving in Amsterdam a year later. He took the degree of Doctor of Physik at the University of Leyden in April 1694. He had intended to write of his travels -- his accomplishments alone put to shame those of most of the other members of the Dutch East India Company at Deshima -- but the Sovereign Prince appointed him as his personal physician. Kaempfer's practice and other business quickly involved him. He married in the year 1700, his son and two daughters all died in infancy, and he himself died in 1716. Kaempfer's first book, Amoenitatum Exoticarum, was published in Latin in 1712. It has no apparent reference to dwarf or potted trees, but does give some of the earliest European descriptions of several plants which are known to have been used as such: Nandin (heavenly bamboo), Umé (flowering apricot), Ginkgo, Sátsuki, Maatz (matsu, pine), Finoki (hinoki), and Momidsi (momiji, maple), among others. Now, Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) was a prominent Irish physician and plant collector who had studied in London, Paris, and Montpellier before settling in London in 1684. He then spent fifteen months as physician to the Governor of Jamaica in the West Indies during the late 1680's, returning with a collection of eight hundred plant specimens and material for a large two volume book. His Voyage to Jamaica became a classic of its kind, a copybook which inspired later and younger botanists and travellers. When Sloane heard of Kaempfer's death, he purchased the latter's manuscripts, drawings, notes, Japanese maps, and forty-nine woodcut books. These had been smuggled out of Japan, and include the eight volume, nearly five hundred plant and tree herbal, Kinmodsui. (Some of Kaempfer's other books went to other libraries.) Sloane gave these papers -- after a more able person was called abroad on different matters -- to John Gaspar Scheuchzer (1702-1729) with the task of translating from High German (aka High Dutch) into English. He was allowed full access to Sir Hans' library. Scheuchzer had been made Sloane's personal librarian, and the collection was said to be the most complete in Europe at the time. One of the books used in Sloane's library but not specifically brought back by Kaempfer was Tsure dsuré Iosijdano Keno [sic], Kenko's Tsurezuregusa. The Kaempfer translation was the chief but not only achievement of Scheuchzer's brief life. He was awarded Doctor of Medicine at Cambridge in 1728; his father (whom Sloane knew) and uncle were known for their works in natural history and botany, respectively. Sloane was President of the Royal College of Physicians (1719-1735) and President of the Royal Society (1727-1741). After his death, England bought his library and natural history collections for £20,000, which then became the nucleus of the British Museum, which opened in 1759. Kaempfer's two works rate as botanical landmarks as they contained practically all that Europe was to learn of Japanese botany until the last quarter of the eighteenth century with Thunberg . He also corrected some mistakes perpetuated from the earliest maps of 1542. 1 |
| The
History of Japan (1727, Scheuchzer's English translation):
In some small houses, and Inns of less note, where there is not room enough, neither for a garden, nor trees, they have at least an opening or window to let the light fall into the back rooms, before which, for the amusement and diversion of travellers, is put a small tub, full of water, wherein they commonly keep some gold or silver fish, as they call them, being fish with gold or silver-colour'd Tails alive. For a farther ornament of the same place, there is generally a flower-pot or two standing there. Sometimes they plant some dwarf-trees there, which will grow easily upon pumice, or other porous stone, without any ground at all, provided the root be put into the water, from whence it will suck up sufficient nourishment. Ordinary people often plant the same kind of trees before street-doors, for their diversion, as well as for an ornament to their houses... [To be found in the Garden of a larger Inn, among other things are s]ome few flower-bearing plants planted confusedly tho' not without some certain rules. Amidst the Plants stands sometimes a Saguer, as they call it [Sago palm, Cycas revoluta] or scarce outlandish tree, sometimes a dwarf-tree or two. 2 |
|
1 Bartlett,
Harley Harris and Hide Shohara Japanese Botany During the
Period of Wood-block Printing (Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop; 1961.
Reprinted from ASA GRAY BULLETIN, N.S. 3: 289-561, Spring, 1961)
pp. 6, 28-29; Jellicoe, Sir Geoffrey and Susan Jellicoe (consult.
eds.) and Patrick Goode and Michael Lancaster (exec. eds.) The Oxford
Companion to Gardens (Oxford University Press, 1986), pg. 520; Marshall
Cavendish, The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated Encyclopedia of Plants
and Earth Science (Bellmore, NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 1988,
reference edition published 1990), Vol. 6, pp. 682-683; most of the biographical
information is from the introductory material to Kaempfer, Engelbert, M.D.
The
History of Japan (Glasgow: James MacKehose and Sons; second full reprint
March 1906. Three volumes. Originally published in two folio
volumes from the author's five books, April 27, 1727 in London); The
Japanese, a very reasonable and sensitive people quote in Kaempfer,
History,
Vol. II, pg. 285; Kaempfer, Amoenitatum Exoticarum (Lemgoviae: Henry
William Meyer, 1712. Fasciculi V. Reprint Edition April 1976
from a copy in the Senate Library, Tehran by the Imperial Organization
for Social Services), pg. 794 has a description in Latin of a "Fási
no ki" -- what is this? Possibly "Ha-shi no ki" (hachi-no-ki, the
prevalent native term in Japan for dwarf potted trees)?; The
biography of Kaempfer has been given here at length to present the reader
with some not-commonly-known background.
2 In some small houses quote in Kaempfer, History, Vol. II, pp. 325-326. It is interesting to note that this earliest known English reference to Japanese dwarf potted trees is of a rock-grown tree, the same basic style as were the earliest Chinese dwarf potted trees. It is perhaps ironic to note that the first day he set foot on Deshima (September 25, 1690), Kaempfer got sick on some raw garden fruit he sampled and had to return to the ship, disembarking again the following day. |