The numbering of houses is further complicated by the fact that the same number is given often to dozens, and sometimes to hundreds, of houses. The explanation is that the numbering first took place while the great daimyo’s mansions were still standing; and when they were pulled down and cut up into smaller lots, these lots retained the same numbers. There are in Tokyo at least two of these great estates which have been divided into nearly a thousand house-lots. It is indeed hard to see how these houses could be renumbered, because in that case every division of an estate would necessitate the renumbering of the whole street, which, in a city like Tokyo where the sizes of houses are constantly changing, would be simply intolerable. Besides these divisions of mansions, we must take into account the frequency of fires. Changes take place not seldom after a fire in the number of houses in a street, and it would of course be impracticable to renumber the whole street whenever a portion of it is burnt down. Sometimes an additional designation, usually a second set of numbers, is given to a group of houses with the same street-number; but fancy names, such as are common in the suburbs of London, are hardly ever given to dwelling-houses. It may therefore be imagined that it is no light task to look up a friend in an unfamiliar quarter. The stranger, then, who visits the streets of Tokyo will find much to arouse his curiosity in the open, windowless shops, the jinrikisha, the native dresses of men and women, the throngs of hawkers, and the ceaseless din of traffic; and at the same time, as he comes to Japan usually in search of the quaint and _bizarre_, he will perhaps be disappointed when he sees the countless overhead wires, the electric trams, omnibuses, and bicycles, European clothes of all shades and descriptions, and other encroachments of western civilisation, which he had hoped to leave behind him and which somewhat shock his artistic sense in their new surroundings. But these inæsthetic innovations he must put up with, for they are typical of the present stage of Japanese civilisation, and nowhere else are they more marked than in Tokyo. The herculean task Japan has set herself leaves her little leisure to consider its artistic effects; she is too much in earnest to waste a thought on the awkward cut of the habiliments she is donning; and only when she has so adapted herself as to fit them exactly, will she turn her attention to their frills and trimmings. CHAPTER III. HOUSES: EXTERIOR. Name-plates—Block-buildings—Gates—The exposure of houses—Fires—House-breaking—Japanese houses in summer and winter—Storms and earthquakes—House-building—The carpenter—The garden.