“In the rear yards, attached to a large number of the dwellings, are out-houses, and sometimes, as in the lodging-houses, additional sleeping-rooms. Kitchen-gardens are not unfrequently seen, and more rarely fancy fish-ponds, dwarfed trees, and even stone carvings. A family shrine, made like a miniature house, containing images of penates and lares, is met with in most of the yards. Only a few of them are adorned with large trees, and still fewer of them exhibit marks of care or taste, presenting in this respect an observable contrast to the neatness of the houses. High hedges or stone walls separate these yards when they are contiguous, but the depth of the lots is usually insufficient to allow room for both the opposite dwellings the luxury of a garden. “There is not much variety in the structure of the various buildings in Shimoda, and their general appearance denotes little enterprise or wealth. The paper windows and doors, not a few of them dirty and covered with writing, or torn by children to take a peep inside, impart a monotonous aspect to the streets. Dyers’, carpenters’, blacksmiths’, stone-cutters’, and some other shops, have latticed fronts to admit more light, which are elevated above the observation of persons passing by. In front of those dwellings occupied by officials, a white cotton curtain, three feet wide, is stretched along the whole length of the porch, having the coat of arms of the occupant painted on it in black; the names of the principal lodgers are also stuck on the door-posts. Signs are mostly written on the doors, as the windows are drawn aside during the day; but only a portion of the shops have any. Lodging-houses, barbers’ shops, restaurants, or tea-houses, apothecaries, and a few others, are almost always indicated by signs. One dealer in crockery and lackered ware has the sign of a celebrated medicine placed on a high pole, and, the more to attract attention, has written the name in foreign letters. As in China, placards for medicines were the most conspicuous of all, but none are pasted upon blank walls; all are suspended in the shops. However, no dwelling or shop is left unprotected from the ill-usage of malignant spirits, every one having a written or printed charm or picture (sometimes a score or more) over the door to defend the inmates from evil.”