File:JapanHomes049 HOUSE IN TOKIO.jpg

English: From original book: "In the cities nothing is more surprising to a foreigner than to go from the dust and turmoil of a busy street directly into a rustic yard and the felicity of quiet country life. On one of the busy streets of Tokio I had often passed a low shop, the barred front of which was never opened to traffic, nor was there ever any one present with whom to deal. I used often to peer between the bars; and from the form of the wooden boxes on the step-like shelves within, I knew that the occupant was a dealer in old pottery. One day I called through the bars several times, and finally a man pushed back the screen in the rear of the shop and bade me come in by way of a narrow alley a little way up the street. This I did, and soon came to a gate that led me into one of the neatest and cleanest little gardens it is possible to imagine. The man was evidently just getting ready for a tea-party, and, as is customary in winter, the garden had been liberally strewn with pine-needles, which had then been neatly swept from the few paths and formed in thick mats around some of the shrubs and trees. The master had already accosted me from the verandah, and after bringing the customary hibachi, over which I warmed my hands, and tea and cake, he brought forth some rare old pottery.

The verandah and a portion of this house as it appeared from the garden are given in fig. 49. At the end of the verandah is seen a narrow partition, made out of the planks of an old ship; it is secured to the side of the house by a huge piece of bamboo. One is greatly interested to see how curiously, and oftentimes artistically, the old worm-eaten and blackened fragments of a shipwreck are worked into the various parts of a house, — this being an odd fancy of the Japanese house-builder. Huge and irregular-shaped logs will often form the cross-piece to a gateway; rudder-posts fixed in the ground form the support of bronze or pottery vessels to hold water. But fragments of a shipwreck are most commonly seen. This wood is always rich in color, and has an antique appearance, — these qualities commending it at once to the Japanese eye, and rendering it, with its associations, an attractive object for their purposes.

In the house above mentioned a portion of a vessel's side or bottom had been used bodily for a screen at the end of the verandah, — for just beyond was the latrine, from the side of which is seen jutting another wing, consisting of a single weather-worn plank bordered by a bamboo-post. This was a screen to shut out the kitchen-yard beyond. Various stepping-stones of irregular shape, as well as blackened planks, were arranged around the yard in picturesque disorder. The sketch conveys, with more or less accuracy, one of the many phases of Japanese taste in these matters.

The wood-work from the rafters of the verandah roof above, to the planks below, was undefiled by oil, paint, wood-filling, or varnish of any kind. The carpentry was light, yet durable and thoroughly constructive; while outside and inside every feature was as neat and clean as a cabinet. The room bordering this verandah is shown in fig. 125."