“The small gallery or walk which jets out from the house towards the garden leads to the house of office and to a bathing-stove, or hot-house. The house of office is built on one side of the back part of the house, and hath two doors to go in. Not far off stands a basin filled with water to wash your hands, commonly an oblong, rough stone, the upper part curiously cut out into the form of a basin. A new pail of bamboo hangs near it, and is covered with a neat fir or cypress board, to which they put a new handle every time it hath been used, to wit, a fresh stick of the bamboo cane, it being a very clean sort of a wood, and in a manner naturally varnished. The bathing-place, commonly built on the back side of the garden, contains either a hot-house to sweat in, or a warm bath, and sometimes both. It is made warm and got ready every evening, because the Japanese usually bathe or sweat after their day’s journey is over, thinking by this means to refresh themselves, and to sweat off their weariness. As they can undress themselves in an instant, so they are ready at a minute’s warning to go into it; for they need but untie their sash, and all their clothes fall down at once, leaving them quite naked, excepting a small band which they wear close to the body about their waist. Their hot-house, which they go into only to sweat, is an almost cubical trunk, or stove, raised about three feet above the ground, and built close to the wall of the bathing-place, on the outside,—not quite six feet high, but about nine feet long, and of the same breadth. The floor is laid with small planed laths or planks, some few inches distant from each other, both for the easy passage of the rising vapors and the convenient outlet of the water. You go, or rather creep in, through a small door or shutter. There are two other shutters, one on each side, to let out the superfluous vapor. The empty space beneath, down to the ground, is enclosed with a wall to prevent the vapors from getting out on the sides. Towards the yard, just beneath the hot-house, is a furnace, part of which stands out towards the yard, where they put in the necessary water and plants. This part is shut with a clapboard when the fire is burning, to make all the vapors ascend through the inner and open part into the hot-house. There are always two tubs, one of warm, the other of cold water, for such as have a mind to wash themselves.