Note 37 — Chapter XXXVIII
Reading edition
Yet Pinto, whose knowledge of Japan preceded the time of Nobunaga, represents silver as very abundant there; and, indeed, it seems to have been this abundance which first attracted the Portuguese trade. On the whole, one does not derive a very high idea, from this tract, of the extent or correctness of the knowledge possessed by the Japanese of their own history, even the more recent periods of it.
[See Dr. Knox’s paper on Arai Hakuseki in vol. xxx of the “Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.”—Edr.]