Our friend could not take us publicly into the town, so he had us conveyed to his country-house in kagos, such as were used at Loo-Choo. On every side, as we passed along, the people were busily employed; some were lading their packhorses with bags of meal, others with heavy mallets were pounding grain into flour, while others were hoeing in the rice grounds up to their knees in water.  There was no sign of poverty, and even the lowest people were well and comfortably clad in coarse garments, shorter than those of the more wealthy classes.  All wear the hair drawn up and fastened at the top in a knot.  In rainy weather they wear cloaks made of straw, so that a person looks like a thatched roof. The same sort of garments, I hear, are used by the Portuguese peasantry. The upper classes cover their robes with a waterproof cloak of oiled-paper.  All, like the Chinese, use the umbrella as a guard from the sun and rain.