From the railway station our travellers went to the Nihon Bashi, in order to begin their journey from the centre of the empire. A more practical reason was a desire to see the river, and the great street leading to it, as they would get a good idea of the extent of the city by taking this route, and would obtain numerous glimpses of Japanese street life. They found the streets full of people, and it seemed to the boys that the whole population must be out for an airing. But the Doctor informed them that the sight they were witnessing was an every-day affair, as the Japanese were essentially an outdoor people, and that many of the industries which in other countries would be conducted under a roof were here seen in progress out of doors. The fronts of the Japanese houses are quite open to the view of the public, and there is hardly anything of what we call privacy. It was formerly no uncommon sight to see people bathing in tubs placed in front of their door-steps; and even at the present time one has only to go into the villages, or away from the usual haunts of foreigners, to see that spectacle which would be unknown in the United States. The bath-houses are now closed in front in all the cities, but remain pretty much as before in the smaller towns. Year by year the country is adopting Western ideas, and coming to understand the Western views of propriety. [Illustration: JAPANESE LADY COMING FROM THE BATH.] As the boys rode along, their attention was drawn to some tall ladders that rose above the buildings, and they eagerly asked the Doctor what those ladders were for. They could not see the use of climbing up in the air and then coming down again; and, altogether, the things were a mystery to them. A few words explained the matter. The ladders were nothing more nor less than fire-lookouts, and were elevated above the buildings so that the watchmen could have an unobstructed view. A bell was attached to each ladder, and by means of it a warning-signal was given in case of a threatened conflagration. Fires are frequent in Tokio, and some of them have done immense damage. The city is mostly built of wood; and when a fire breaks out and a high wind is blowing, the result is often disastrous to an enormous extent. [Illustration: FIRE-LOOKOUTS IN TOKIO.] After the great fires of the last twenty years, the burned districts have been rebuilt of stone, or largely so; and precautions that were hitherto unknown are now taken for the prevention of fresh disasters. Some of the new quarters are quite substantial, but they resemble too strongly the edifices of a city in Europe to be characteristic of Japan.