Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 1.djvu/232

JAPAN the veranda ran a railing, broken at three places to give access to wooden steps by which the garden was reached, and the main entrance had a porch to shelter palanquins and ox-carriages.

Such was the general scheme of all aristocratic dwellings. It was derived in great part from the plan of Buddhist temples. The idea of dividing the interior space into several rooms had not yet been conceived. Neither was the floor covered with thick rectangular mats of uniform size, fitting together so exactly as to form a perfectly level surface. That extensive use of tatami, as this essentially Japanese kind of mat is called, came into fashion at a later period. In the Heian epoch floors were boarded, mats being sometimes laid in a limited part of the room only, and always in the space which served for a bed. The aristocratic sleeping-place of the time was a species of movable matted dais. Its sides were lacquered, and posts rose from each corner to support a canopy and curtains of silk and fine gauze,—a mosquito net in fact. This drapery was held in place round the base of the dais by means of weights in the form of Dogs of Fo, chiselled in bronze or silver, and the mats had broad borders of brocade for patrician dwellings and of coarse cotton cloth for humbler folks. Toward the close of the epoch it became customary to cover the floors entirely with mats, especially in rooms reserved for the habitation of 204