Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/662

644 consider such a structure as a dwelling, when so many features are absent that go to make up a dwelling at home—no doors or windows such as he had been familiar with; no attic or cellar; no chimneys, and within no fireplace, and of course no customary mantel; no permanently inclosed rooms; and, as for furniture, no beds or tables, chairs or similar articles—at least, so it appears at first sight.

One of the chief points of difference in a Japanese house, as compared with ours, lies in the treatment of partitions and outside walls. In our houses these are solid and permanent, and, when the frame is built, the partitions form part of the framework. In the Japanese house, on the contrary, there are two or more sides that have no permanent walls. Within, also, there are but few partitions which have similar stability; in their stead arc slight sliding-screens, which run in appropriate grooves in the floor and overhead. These grooves mark the limit of each room. The screens may be opened by sliding them back, or they may be entirely removed, thus throwing a number of rooms into one great apartment. In the same way the whole side of a house may be flung open to sunlight and air. For communication between the rooms, therefore, swinging-doors are not necessary. As a substitute for windows, the outside screens, or shōji, are covered with white paper, allowing the light to be diffused through the house.

Where external walls appear they are of wood unpainted, or painted black, and, if of plaster, white or dark slate-colored. In certain classes of building the outside wall, to a height of several feet from the ground, and sometimes even the entire wall, may be tiled, the interspaces being pointed with white plaster. The roof may be either lightly shingled, heavily tiled, or thickly thatched. It has a moderate pitch, and, as a general thing, the slope is not so steep as in our roofs. Nearly all the houses have a veranda, which is protected by the widely overhanging eaves of the roof, or by a light supplementary roof projecting from beneath the eaves.

While most houses of the better class have a definite porch and vestibule, or genka, in houses of the poorer class this entrance is not separate from the living-room; and, since the interior of the house is accessible from two or three sides, one may enter it from any point. The floor is raised a foot and a half or more from the ground, and is covered with thick straw mats, rectangular in shape, of uniform size, with sharp, square edges, and so closely fitted that the floor upon which they rest is completely hidden. The rooms are either square or rectangular, and are made with absolute reference to the number of mats they are to contain. With the exception of the guest-room, few rooms have projections or bays. In the guest-room there is at one side a more or less deep recess divided into two bays by a slight partition; the one nearest the veranda is called the tokonoma. In this place hang one or more pictures, and upon its floor, which is slightly raised above the mats, rests a flower-vase, incense-burner, or some