IN JAPAN. 41 



A really fine piece of old lacquer is often worth a couple of hundred pounds. 



" It is said that the modern Japanese have lost the art of lacquer-making ; and as an 

 illustration I was told that many beautiful articles of lacquer, old and new, had been sent from 

 this country to the Vienna Exhibition in 1873, but the price put on them was so exorbitant 

 that few were sold, and nearly all had to be sent back to Japan. Just as the ship with these 

 things on board reached the Gulf of Jeddo, she struck on a rock and sank in shallow water. 

 A month or two ago a successful attempt was made to raise her and to recover the cargo, when 

 it was found that the new lacquer had been reduced to a state of pulp, while the old was not in 

 the least damaged. I tell you the tale as it was told to me. 



A STREET IN JAPAN. 



" After a long day's shopping, we went to dine, in real Japanese fashion, at a Japanese 

 tea-house. The establishment was kept by a very pleasant woman, who received us at the door, 

 and who herself removed our exceedingly dirty boots before allowing us to step on to her clean 

 mats. This was all very well, as far as it went ; but she might as well have supplied us with 

 some substitute for the objectionable articles, for it was a bitterly cold night, and the highly- 

 polished wood passages and steep staircase felt very cold to our shoeless feet. The apartment 

 we were shown into was so exact a type of a room in any Japanese house that I may as well 

 describe it once for all. The wood- work of the roof and the framework of the screens were all 

 made of a handsome dark polished wood, not unlike walnut. 



" The exterior walls under the verandah, as well as partitions between the other rooms, 

 were simply wooden lattice-work screens covered with white paper, and sliding in grooves, so 

 that you could walk in or out at any part of the wall you chose, and it was, in like manner, 

 impossible to say whence the next comer would make his appearance; doors and windows are 

 by this arrangement rendered unnecessary, and do not exist. You open a little bit of your wall 

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