Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/32

 of the Tokugawa Court. Contemporary records bear witness to the impression produced upon the citizens by the magnificent mansions which then began to spring up in the city. One tradition says that a golden tiger, set over the gate of the Hikone residence at Shibaura, cast such a brilliant reflection as to drive away all the fish from the neighbouring sea, and another describes the decorations of the Higo baron's mansion in terms that suggest a blaze of grandeur and beauty. Spacious plots of land were granted by the Shōgun for these residences. Even a samurai with an income of only two thousand pounds annually had a space of half an acre for building purposes, and thus the parks surrounding the feudal yashiki soon became as remarkable as the yashiki themselves. It was inevitable that the castle of the Shōgun should gradually be adapted to this growth of refinement. Before the close of the seventeenth century a magnificent suite of apartments had been built, including chambers specially allotted for the reception of the feudatories according to their rank. The principal of these chambers, where the council of State assembled, was known as "the thousand-mat room," feet; and seventy-two sliding doors that gave access to it were painted throughout with a design of pine-trees from the brush of Kano Tanyu. Some of the chambers took their names from the subjects chosen by their decorators,—as the room of the wild geese, the room