The houses, wide open to the street, displayed the usual raised platform of wood, smoothly planed, covered with matting, with _hibachi_ or firebox in the middle; but there was no brilliant glimpse beyond of the wonderful toy gardens, with rocks and dwarfed trees and straying tortoises and gaudy flowers and crickets in tiny cages, which distinguish a prosperous village. The paper windows or screens being always pushed back in their grooves during the day, a rustic Japanese household of the lower class may be said to live in public; for, till the screens are replaced, which they usually are at dusk, there may be said to be no privacy. You have a free view of goodman or matron in the bath, or at the toilet, or eating, or sleeping, or at work, and unabashed--with innocence sometimes for only garment--they nod to you pleasantly with a cheerful "Ohayo!" as you pass. Tsu was too degraded, steeped to the lips in grinding poverty, to have energy for work or washing, much less for the homely ornament of a single lily in a pot. Almost entirely nude the men, unkempt and frowsy, lolled and slept--such a marvellous variety of attitudes of sleep a sculptor might find there--while the housewife, thin and sallow, naked to the waist, fumbled feebly over the weaving of cheap hats, or grass sandals for man and horse. Of course the town could boast of a superior quarter, where, in front of houses of a better kind, were flapping blue cotton awnings, each one adorned with the dominant daimio's cognisance. Into one of these, apparently the cleanest and the best, we will enter (first removing our clogs and swords), for what is proceeding within should interest us somewhat. It is evening. The house-platform is raised on stilts as usual, two feet above ground, and the first room or ante-chamber is open to the street. When we rap with fan on the paper screen beyond, some one cries "Enter," and sliding it aside we find ourselves in a large low room, whose ceiling of unpolished cryptomeria is supported by pillars of cherry. Above the dais or recess of honour at the end, a single picture hangs, representing the thirty-three Kwannon; under it is a gilt image of Buddha; while the monotony of the one wooden wall (the others are formed by paper screens running in grooves) is broken by a wandering spray of maple foliage, painted in autumn tints.