With a room as scene of action, the Kabuki carpenters have created types for all classes of dwellings the plays require. The background for a room in a great mansion will show a series of sliding panels on which are painted Chinese castles and pagodas, golden clouds, and green misty hills. Silver screens may be decorated with black waves in motion, or blue water, lotus leaves and flowers. The structures to be represented vary from an elaborately constructed mansion in cream wood to the realistic interior of the middle-class home in which the white-papered windows and doors form a pleasing feature. Temples, a hermitage in the midst of a forest, the thatched cottage of a farmer, are all variations of the one theme, which gives the widest latitude for invention and decoration. Much of the action in Kabuki plays takes place in this room, with only the screens for background, and standing lanterns at each side. But there are more elaborate architectural triumphs, such as the great red entrance gate of Nanzen-ji, a Kyoto temple, carved, decorated, ornate, two-storied, and produced in detail. The bold robber, Ishikawa Goemon, hides in the second story, and comes forth on the railed balcony to smoke. This portion of the gate is first shown, the wall behind him in gold, painted with many-coloured clouds. As he stands there in his black velvet kimono and great overcoat of gold and black, the gate begins slowly to rise until the lower part is completely in view, the chief temple building in perspective within the arch of the gate, and Goemon looking down from his lofty position at his enemy below. At another time, the Kabuki craftsmen spare no pains in constructing the Yomei gate of the famous Nikko Shrines, one of the best pieces of architecture in Japan, and so perfectly is it reproduced that the workmanship calls for admiration. But when no longer needed, the entire structure, which towers high, slowly turns over on end, and the bottom represents the background for the following action. From grey dilapidated temples where apparitions make their appearance, or the nobility partaking of ceremonial tea in some landscape garden, the Kabuki craftsman passes to the fashioning of a red pagoda, the under-eaves showing many brilliant colours. He places two stories of the structure in a snowy scene. Warrior-priests in grey with white head coverings rush on the scene armed with long spears. An old dignitary wearing gold armour, over which there is a thin, black, priest’s robe, stands at one side with a torch in his hand. Another figure, in silver brocade and white, poses on the steps leading to the pagoda. The hero in armour—red, green, and gold—appears on the upper gallery. Then ensues a big fight in the whirling snow, the deep boom of a temple bell sounding through the fray.