Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/92

 and shops, where we catch glimpses of the water beyond fields and gardens nicely laid out and cultivated in vegetables and fruits. When about half way we reach the river Logo, the boundary of the treaty limits, within which foreigners may travel without a passport. Here is a famous tea-house, and while our horses are being changed we accept the invitation to alight and refresh ourselves with little cups of tea, and minute dishes of sweet-meats and confectionery. The garden about the inn is laid out with much taste in miniature cascades, fountains, rockeries, etc., a style of ornamental gardening of which the Japanese are very fond. The proprietor has added to the attractions of the place, by employing very pretty and modest-appearing girls as waitresses, who show us into a room about twelve feet square, which is divided off from adjoining rooms by sliding paper screens, so arranged that to accommodate large parties all these rooms can be thrown into one. Across the side is a platform about a foot high, and the floor is covered with white straw mats, very soft and perfectly clean. A mat and a fan in this country are the units of measurement; the latter being about a foot, while mats are always made of one exact size, three feet by six. In building houses, rooms are arranged in size with reference to to the number of mate that will exactly cover the floor. The room seems empty, but according to their ideas it is completely furnished. A young couple can go to housekeeping in Japan without making large bills at furniture warehouses and upholsterers. Two or three rooms covered with soft mats, a few cotton-stuffed quilts for bed clothing, a pan to cook the rice, half a dozen lacquer caps and trays to eat from, a large tub to bathe in, and a charcoal brazier to warm the room in cold weatherthis completes the outfit of very respectable young people; no chairs, tables, and array of furniture, with which civilized people crowd their rooms to the great detriment of their finances, are required. Perhaps some of our young folks at home, who cherish a wholesome horror of running into debt, may long for a country of such Spartan simplicity of manners, dress and housekeeping. While at the tea-house I made friends with a large and very handsome cat, but expressed pity that she had been mutilated by cutting off her tail. My friend laughingly informed me that such is the