CHAP. XVI.] JAPANESE BEDROOM. 6B7 



within which " there was nothing else," as the priest phrased it 

 on another occasion. 



Enoshima is a little rocky peninsula, which is connected with 

 the mainland by a low, sandy neck of land. Occasionally this 

 neck of land has been broken through or overflowed, and the 

 peninsula has then been converted into an island. It is con- 

 sidered sacred, and is studded with Shinto temples. On the side 

 of the peninsula next the mainland there is a little village, 

 consisting of inns, tea-houses, and shops for pilgrims' and 

 tourists* articles, among which are beautiful shells, and the 

 fine siliceous skeleton of a sponge, Hyalonema mirabilis, Gray. 

 Here I lived for the first time in a Japanese inn of the sort 

 to which Europeans in ordinary circumstances are not admitted. 

 I was accompanied by two officials from the governor's court at 

 Yokohama, and it was on their assurance that I did not belong 

 to the common sort of uncultivated and arrogant foreierners that 

 the host made no difficulty in receiving us. 



After we had at our entrance saluted the people of the inn 

 and passed some time in the exchange of civilities, there came a 

 girl, and, in a kneeling posture, offered the foreigners Japanese 

 tea, which is always handed round in very small cujds only half 

 full. Then we took off our shoes and went into the guest- 

 chamber. Such chambers in the Japanese inns are commonly 

 large and dazzlingly clean. Furniture is completely wanting, 

 but the floor is covered with mats of plaited straAV. The walls 

 are ornamented with songs suitable for the place, or mottoes, and 

 with Japanese paintings. The rooms are separated from each 

 other by thin movable panels, which slide in grooves, which can 

 be removed or replaced at will. One may, therefore, as once 

 happened to me, lay himself down to sleep in a very large room, 

 and, if he sleeps sound, awake in the morning in a very small one. 

 The room generally looks out on a Japanese garden-inclosure, or 

 if it is in the upper story, on a small balcony. Immediately 

 outside there is always a vessel filled with water and a scoop. 

 Generally on one side of the room there is a wall-press, in which 

 the bed-clothes are kept. These, the only household articles in 

 the room, consist of a thick mat, which is spread on the floor, 

 a round cushion for the head, or instead of it a wooden support, 

 stuffed on the upper side, for the neck during sleep, and a thick 

 stuffed night-shirt which serves as covering. 



As soon as one comes in the female attendants distribute four- 

 cornered cushions for sitting on, which are placed on the floor 

 round a wooden box, on one corner of which stands a little 

 brazier, on the other a high clay vessel of uniform breadth, with 

 water in the bottom, which serves as a spittoon and tobacco-ash 

 cup. At the same time tea is brought in anew, in the small cups 

 previously described, with saucers, not of porcelain, but of metal. 



