This does not look to be a very comfortable place to sleep. The Japanese girl, however, is used to such a bed and prefers it to one of the American kind. The floors of a Japanese house are covered by mats, 3 inches thick. On these is spread a heavy quilt, called a futon. This is the mattress, springs, and bedstead, all combined. The pillow is a block, curved as you see, with a very slight pad. The bed is only one of the queer things in and about a Japanese house. The house itself is built of an outside layer of shutters fastened to a slight framework. In the daytime the shutters are thrown open. The rooms inside are set apart by screens. The size of the room depends on the number of mats one wishes to put in it. The mats are all 6 x 3 feet. The roofs of the houses are very thick to keep out the heavy rainfall and to hold the houses down, so the hurri-

canes called typhoons, will not blow them to pieces. When you reach the door of a Japanese house you pull off your shoes. The mats on the floor must be kept clean, for you will sleep on one of them to-night. Just now you will be invited to sit on one, crossing your legs in the Eastern fashion. A meal is served you where you sit: any room is the dining or sleeping room. The meal is slight. Flower leaves, wafers, tea, rice, fish, and pickles are brought in this order. Fires break out often in Japanese houses. They spread rapidly and sometimes whole cities are wiped out. But the Japanese have a sort of "storm-cellar" of concrete in their houses where they keep another set of shutters and screens. The fire is hardly out till a new city is set up. What tree is used chiefly in Japanese building?