Japan and the Japanese

400 JAPAN. A. D. 1773 177.
rains to prevent the paper windows from being damaged. Tlicrt
are no glass windows here ; nor have I observed mother-of-pearl
or muscovy talc [mica, or isinglass] used for this purpose.
" The houses have neither the elegant appearance nor the con-
venience and comfort of ours in Europe. The rooms are not so
cheerful and pleasant, nor so warm in the winter, neither are they
so safe in case of fire, nor so durable. Their semi-transparent paper
windows, in particular, spoil the houses, as well in their inside as
outside appearance. Neither chimneys nor stoves are known
throughout the whole country, although the cold is very intense,
and they are obliged to make fires in their apartments from Octo-
ber to March. The fires are made in copper kettles, of various
sizes, with broad projecting edges. This mode of firing is liable,
however, to this inconvenience, that the charcoal sometimes smokes,
in consequence of which the apartment becomes dirty and black, and
the eyes of the company suifer exceedingly.
"The floors are always covered with mats made of a fine species
of rush (Juncus effmws}, cultivated in low spots for that purpose,
and interwoven with rice straw. These mats are from three to four
inches thick, and of the same size throughout the country, viz., two.
yards long and one broad. The insides of the houses, both ceiling
and walls, are covered with a handsome, thick paper, ornamented
with various flowers. These hangings are either green, yellow or
white ; and sometimes embellished with silver and gold. As the
paper is greatly damaged by the smoke in winter, it is renewed
every third or fifth year.*
*Tlie Japanese paper, as well for writing and printin.s: as fur the household
uses to which it is so extensively put, is manufactured from the bark of the
young twigs of the paper mulberry (Morns papyrifiru). Kitmpfer has
given a p-irticular account of it in the appendix to his work. That account,
are on foot for the manufacture of
which, now that so many experiments
paper, m:iy suggest some useful hints, is abridged by Tliunberg as follows :
" After the tree has shed its leaves in the month of December, they cut off
the young shoots about three feet in length, which they tie up in bundles and
boil in a lye of ashes, standing inverted in a copper kettle till the bark is so
shrunk that half an inch of the woody part is seen bare at the ends. If the
twigs grow ry before they can be boiled, they are first soaked in water for
four-and-twenty hours. When sufficiently boiled they are taken out and
the bark cut lengthwise and stripped off After being soaked in water for