1845.] CONSTRUCTION OF HOUSES. 33 



may be occasion. The doors of the rooms and the par- 

 titions are covered with paper, even in the most splendid 

 houses : but this paper is adorned with gold or silver 

 flowers, and sometimes with paintings, with which the 

 ceiling is always embellished. In short, there is not a 

 corner of the house but has a cheerful and pleasing 

 appearance. This mode of arrangement renders houses 

 more healthy : in the first place, because they are entirely 

 built of fir and cedar ; in the second, because the windows 

 are so contrived, that by changing the place of the parti- 

 tions, the air is allowed a free passage through them. 

 The roof, which is covered with boards or shingles, is 

 supported by thick rafters ; and, when a house has two 

 floors, the upper is usually built more solidly than the 

 lower. It has been found by experience, that a house so 

 constructed, resists the shocks of earthquakes better. In 

 the architecture of the exterior there is nothing very 

 elegant. The walls, which, as I observed, are of boards, 

 and which are very thin, are covered in many places with 

 a greasy earth found near Osaka ; or, instead of this 

 earth, they give the outside a coat of varnish, which they 

 lay on the roofs also. This varnish is relieved with gilding 

 and paintings. The windows are filled with pots of 

 flowers, which, according to Caron, they have for all 

 seasons ; but when they have no natural flowers they 

 make shift with artificial ones. All this produces an 

 effect that pleases the eye, if it does not gratify it so 

 highly as beautiful architecture would do." 



These remarks particularly apply to the houses of the 

 Meia-co-shimas, Loo-Choo, and Quelpart. The mats in 

 particular are, I perceive, according to law, which I sus- 



i) 



