Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 2.djvu/91

 Pictorial decoration, elaborate and beautiful as it was, did not constitute the principal item of cost in constructing these mansions. It was rather upon rare woods, uniquely grown timbers, exquisite joinery, and fine plastering that great sums were lavished. Single boards eighteen feet square; pine stems forty feet long without any appreciable difference of diameter throughout; carpenter's work as accurate as though all the parts of a building had grown together naturally instead of being joined artificially,—these involved outlays even greater than the sums lavished on the decorative artist.

Protection against fire was sought by constructing separate storerooms, having solid wooden frames completely covered with mud and plaster. In earlier times, the chief object of a storeroom had been security against damp. Raised floors were consequently the distinctive feature of such edifices. But the conflagrations by which Kyōtō was devastated in the Military epoch taught the people that fire was their worst enemy, and they soon saw the expediency of protecting all the timbers of a building against direct contact with flame. In the thirteenth century the first fire-proof storehouse (dozō) made its appearance, and quickly took the shape it has retained ever since. Over the wooden framework layer after layer of plaster was laid, each being suffered to dry fully before the next was applied, until a thickness of as much as two feet was obtained.