Chapter One
In a Japanese Garden

1
MY little two-story house by the Ohashigawa, although dainty as a bird-
cage, proved much too small for comfort at the approach of the hot
season--the rooms being scarcely higher than steamship cabins, and so
narrow that an ordinary mosquito-net could not be suspended in them. I
was sorry to lose the beautiful lake view, but I found it necessary to
remove to the northern quarter of the city, into a very quiet Street
behind the mouldering castle. My new home is a katchiu-yashiki, the
ancient residence of some samurai of high rank. It is shut off from the
street, or rather roadway, skirting the castle moat by a long, high wall
coped with tiles. One ascends to the gateway, which is almost as large
as that of a temple court, by a low broad flight of stone steps; and
projecting from the wall, to the right of the gate, is a look-out
window, heavily barred, like a big wooden cage. Thence, in feudal days,
armed retainers kept keen watch on all who passed by--invisible watch,
for the bars are set so closely that a face behind them cannot be seen
from the roadway. Inside the gate the approach to the dwelling is also
walled in on both sides, so that the visitor, unless privileged, could
see before him only the house entrance, always closed with white shoji.
Like all samurai homes, the residence itself is but one story high, but
there are fourteen rooms within, and these are lofty, spacious, and
beautiful. There is, alas, no lake view nor any charming prospect. Part
of the O-Shiroyama, with the castle on its summit, half concealed by a
park of pines, may be seen above the coping of the front wall, but only
a part; and scarcely a hundred yards behind the house rise densely