to squander. As he may, moreover, be circumvented through many tender spots in his heart, he does not deserve to be put in the same category as earthquakes. Science may in course of time predict earthquakes and enable us to prepare against them; but fires which may be wholly prevented by human care and caution are the most uncertain of all. No atmospheric changes precede their outbreak, which depends entirely upon human malice or stupidity, and that no science has yet fathomed. Fires seldom break out in country-sides, being the usual products of populous towns. “Flowers of Yedo” were they fitly called in the shogun’s capital, where they blossomed in perennial magnificence; and indeed so luxuriant and of such gorgeous hues were they that their successive blooms covered, in less than thirty years, a total space equal to the area of the whole city. The frequency of fires was due to the material of which most Japanese houses are built. Earthquakes make stone edifices dangerous unless they are on very solid foundations; and buildings of earth and plaster which usually serve as store-houses and occasionally as habitations, especially in the heart of the city, are both costly and uncomfortable in summer heat. In both respects wooden houses are preferable; and as wood is almost exclusively used in house-construction, the outbreak of a fire in a high wind is always of serious consequences. The Castle of Yedo has, since its first occupation by the Tokugawa family in 1590, been burnt down seven times. The first great fire in Yedo took place in 1601, when the whole city was laid in ruins; but as Tokugawa Iyeyasu did not become shogun until two years later, it had not yet been made the military capital of the country. Houses had, up to the outbreak of this fire, been entirely straw-thatched; and orders were forthwith given for rebuilding them with wooden roofs. At this time, one Takiyama Yajibei built his house with a roofing half-covered with tiles. This attracted attention, and Takiyama earned the sobriquet of Half-tile Yajibei; but
