Japan and the Japanese

BATHING AND SWEATING HOUSE. 309
6. " A bunch of a tree, or a piece of a rotten root, or of an old
stump, remarkable for .their monstrous deformed shape.
" After this manner the chief and back apartments are furnished
in great inns, and houses of substantial people. The other rooma
gradually decrease in cleanliness, neatness and delicacy of furniture ;
the screens, windows, mats and other ornaments and household
goods, after they have for some time adorned the chief apartments,
and begin
to be spotted and to grow old, being removed into the
other rooms successively, there to be quite worn out. The chief
of the other rooms is that where they keep their plate, china ware
and other household goods, ranged upon the floor in curious order,
and use. Most of these are made of -
according to their size, shape
wood, thin, but strongly varnished, the
greatest part upon a dark
red ground. They are washed with warm water every time they
have been used, and wiped clean with a, cloth ; by which means they
will, though constantly used, keep clean and neat, and in their full
lustre for several years.
" The small gallery or walk which jets out from the house towards
the garden, leads to the house of office and to a bathing-stove, or
hot-house. The house of office is built on one side of the back part
of the house, and hath two doors to go in. Not far off stands a
basin filled with water to wash your hands, commonly an oblong,
rough stone, the upper part curiously cut out into the form of a
basin. A new pail of bamboo hangs near it, and is covered with a
neat fir or cypress board, to which they put a new handle every
time it hath been used, to wit, a fresh stick of the bamboo cane, it
being a very clean sort of a wood, and in a manner naturally varnished.
The bathing-place, commonly built on the back side of the
garden, contains cither a hot-house to sweat in, or a warm bath, and
sometimes both. It is made warm and got ready every evening,
because the Japanese usually bathe or sweat after their day's jour-
ney is over, thinking by this means to refresh themselves, and to
sweat off their weariness. As they can undress themselves in an
instant, so they are ready at a minute's warning to go into it ; for
they need but untie their sash, and all their clothes fall down at
once, leaving them quite naked, excepting a small band which they
wear close to the body about their waist. Their hot-house, which
they go into only to sweat, is an almost cubical trunk, or sto\e,