3 182202465 1721 s$J%*mf- m^W Jfe*'^^*^ *'* WWW;: -'W

276
HONDA THE SAMURAI.
enclosure of which covered one hundred and forty
acres.
The prison wall outside was twelve feet high,
made of rows of tiles laid flat, with earth and cem-
ent between each layer, and surmounted with che-
vaux-de-frise of wooden beams armed with sharpened
spikes. In front of the wall and running around it
was a clear space of ground about twenty feet wide.
On the border of this outer space, at the same dis-
tance from the wall, was a rampart of earth five feet
high, on which was a fence of bamboo palings. The
gate through which the entrance was had into the
prison was like that of an ordinary yashiki. Imme-
diately within were the porter's lodge and dwellings
of officers, turnkeys, executioners, carcass-buriers,
and prison attendants of all grades. All the build-
ings of every kind were of wood. The prison area
was divided into a number of yards having stone
walls and walls surmounted by iron spikes.
The prison proper consisted of a long one-story
building. The office of the wardens and turnkeys,
a room about twenty feet wide, was in the center,
and the cells were arranged east and west from this
office. Looking at the prison from the outside, in
the clean yard, it reminded one of an immense coop
or cage in a menagerie. All the bars, however, were
square, well planed, perfectly smooth, and good specimens
of carpenter-work. The obsequious turnkey,
at the nod of the polite officer, produced a bunch
of enormous rods of iron, which proved to be keys,
though they had neither ward nor barrel and bore