Here we have a house, which, so far as earthquakes are concerned, is an exaggerated example of the principles which are followed in the construction of an ordinary Japanese dwelling. Another plan adopted in South America can be gathered from the same author’s writings upon Lima, about which he says, ‘To build high houses would be to erect structures for the first earthquake to make sport of, and, therefore, in order to obtain space, safety, and comfort, the houses of the wealthy surround court after court, filled with flowers, and cooled with fountains, connected one with another with wide passages which give a vista from garden to garden.’ History would indicate that houses of this type have been arrived at as the results of experience, for it is said that when the inhabitants of South America first saw the Spaniards building tall houses, they told them they were building their own sepulchres.[26] In Jamaica, we find that even as early as 1692 experience had taught the Spaniards to construct low houses, which withstood shakings better than the tall ones.[27] In Caraccas, which has been called the city of earthquakes, it is said that the earthquakes cause an average yearly damage amounting to the equivalent of a _per capita_ tax of four dollars. To reduce this impost to a minimum much attention is paid to construction. ‘Projecting basement corners (giving the house a slightly pyramidal appearance) have been found better than absolutely perpendicular walls; mortised corner-stones and roof beams have saved many lives when the central walls have split from top to bottom; vaults and key-stone arches, no matter how massive, are more perilous than common wooden lintels, and there are not many isolated buildings in the city. In many streets broad iron girders, riveted to the wall, about a foot above the house door, run from house to house along the front of an entire square. Turret-like brick chimneys, with iron top ornaments, would expose the architect to the vengeance of an excited mob; the roofs are flat, or flat terraced; the chimney flues terminate near the eaves in a perforated lid.’[28]