94 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



a Japanese town, I should on awakening know my where- 

 abouts by its unmistakable odors, many of which are the 

 legitimate product of the kitchen. 



The houses of the people are of the plainest character. 

 They are usually of one story only, hotels, and some city 

 houses which serve the double pur[)ose of shop and dwelling, 

 excepted. The woodwork is fastened by wooden pins and 

 wedges. Paint is seldom used, palaces and cottages alike 

 being of gray wood. Color and gilding is found only in 

 temples, which indeed exhibit wonderful elaborations also in 

 framing, wood carving and metal ornamentation. The pan- 

 elled ceiling of one of the most beautiful temples which I 

 visited was composed entirely of carved and polished tortoise 

 shell. 



Two or more sides of the house are open, from which one 

 looks out over a narrow veranda, floored with polished pine 

 or cedar, into a small inclosure of ground planted with chrys- 

 anthemums and a plum or cherry tree, and exhibiting with 

 more or less elaboration a bit of their peculiar landscape 

 gardening. 



The interior partitions extend from the ceiling to within 

 about six feet from the floor, the opening below being closed 

 by means of light sliding screens of delicately framed lattice 

 work covered with paper, by which the rooms are separated, 

 and l)y removing which two or more rooms may be thrown 

 together. The verandas are inclosed at night by similar 

 screens or shutters of thin wood. 



The w^alls of the house are usually of wood, sometimes of 

 mud-plaster spread upon a web or lattice of bamboo strips 

 Avoven together between the frame timbers, and are occasion- 

 ally covered with lozenge-shaped tile. Roofs are covered 

 with beautiful black tiling or thin shingles, held on by strips 

 of board and weighted with stones (as in many Swiss cot- 

 tages), or with a well-made thatch of rice straw, according 

 to locality, and the means of the owner. 



The rooms arc carpeted with well-made mats of straw, 

 bound with black cloth. They are from two to three inches 

 thick, and of the uniform size of three by six Japanese feet.* 



* It is inti'restiug to note that the Japanese foot diflfers from the English by less 

 than one-sixteenth of an inch. 



