Japan and the Japanese

296 JAPAN. A. D. 1090 1C32.
little else but to lay up some of the least necessary household goods,
it being often without a ceiling or any other cover but the bare roof.
The reason of their building their houses so low, is the frequency
of earthquakes, which prove much more fatal to lofty and massy
buildings of stone, than to low and small houses of wood. 13ut if
the houses of the Japanese be not so large, lofty, or so substantially
built as ours, they are on the other hand greatly to be admired for
their uncommon neatness and cleanliness, and curious furniture. I
could not help taking notice that the furniture and the several orna-
ments of their apartments make a far more graceful and handsome
appearance in rooms of a small compass, than they would do in
large, lofty halls. They have none, or but few, partition walls to
divide their rooms from each other, but instead of them make use
of folding screens, made of colored or gilt paper, and laid into
wooden frames, which they can put up or remove whenever they
please, and by this means enlarge their rooms or make them narrower,
as it best suits their fancy or convenience. The floors are
somewhat raised above the level of the street, and are all made of
boards, neatly covered with fine mats,* the borders whereof are
curiously fringed, embroidered, or otherwise neatly adorned. All
mats are of the same size in all parts of the empire, to wit, a kin,
or six feet long,t and half a kin broad. All the lower part of the
house, the staircase leading up to the second story, if there be any,
the doors, windows,^ posts and passages, are curiously painted and
varnished. The ceilings are neatly covered with gilt or silver col-
ored paper, embellished with flowers, and the screens in several
rooms curiously painted. In short, there is not one corner in the
whole house but looks handsome and pretty, and this the rather
since all their furniture may be bought at an easy rate.
" I must not forget to mention, that it is very healthful to live
* Three or four inches thick (according to Thunberg), and made of rushes
and rice straw.
t Japanese feet, that is, for, according to Kl.-vproth (.Qnnales des Emp. du
Japan), page 404, note, the kin is equal to seven feet four inches and a
half, Rhinelnnd (which docs not differ much from our English) measure.
t These windows are of light frames, which may be taken out, and put in,
and slid behind each other, at pleasure, divided into parallelograms like our
panes of glass, and covered with paper.
Glass windows are uiilnown.