The Japanese are decidedly a literary people.  All classes can read and write; and works of light reading appear from their presses almost with the same rapidity that they do with us.  They print from wooden blocks, and have wooden type.  They have also long been accustomed to print in colours.  The paper they employ is manufactured from the bark of the mulberry, but is so thin that only one side can be used.  They have sorts of games, some like our chess, and cards, and lotto, and we saw the lads in the streets playing ball very much as boys do in an English country village.