For ordinary cooking purposes a small hearth of plaster, stone, or iron is used. It is round or square, and larger at top than at bottom. The top is open with an earthen grating at a few inches’ depth from the edge, and an ash-box underneath, which has an outlet at the side for raking out the ashes and fanning the fire. But little charcoal is needed as the space between the grating and the bottom of the pot is very limited. Near the larger hearth is a black earthen pot with a lid, into which half-burnt charcoal is put and extinguished with water; and when they are dry, these half-burnt pieces are used for lighting fresh charcoal with as they catch fire much more readily. For stirring and clearing the hearth, we use a shovel with a long wooden handle and a pair of long iron rods which are held like chopsticks to pick up pieces of charcoal or cinders. The tongs which are used for braziers are much shorter and made of iron, copper, or brass; they are also used like chopsticks and are indeed called in Japanese “fire-chopsticks.” A hollow bamboo tube with a knot at one end which has a little hole in the centre takes the place of bellows. Besides the iron pots for making soup and other food on a large scale, which are set on the great hearth, we have small pots and pans for the little hearth. The pots have semicircular handles of metal, the ends of which are hooked into holes on opposite sides of the pots, while the pans have wooden handles fitting into sheaths at the side. They all have wooden lids. Fish and other food are roasted on an iron netting, about a foot square, which is put over the little hearth. When a fish is roasted, the fat melts and drops into the fire, raising large volumes of oily smoke and emitting a smell which fills the whole house. One can always tell, when a mackerel pike, for instance, is being roasted, long before one enters the house. [Illustration: A SKYLIGHT AND THE KITCHEN-GOD.] For transferring rice into a tub or a bowl a wooden spatula is used, while soup and other food which cannot be picked up with chopsticks are put with a wooden spoon into bowls or on plates. For gravy a small earthen spoon is used. Kitchen knives are of three kinds: the square for common use, the triangular for dressing fish, and the long narrow-edged one for cutting thin slices of fish. The dresser is a thick, two-legged board, at which one has to kneel or squat. There are also bamboo baskets for carrying vegetables and other food which require to be washed; but those things which are eaten without first washing and must therefore be kept free from dust are brought home in a round wooden box with a lid and a handle. For pounding soft objects there is an earthen mortar shaped like an inverted cone, with rough ribbed sides, against which the objects are rubbed with a wooden pestle.