ke no
special reference to the authors of this innovation, but it is
mentioned that among the descendants of the Chinese, Achi, and the
Korean, Tsuka, there were men who practised carpentry. Apparently the
fashion of high buildings was established in the reign of Anko when
(A.D. 456) the term ro or takadono (lofty edifice) is, for the first
time, applied to the palace of Anko in Yamato. A few years later
(468), we find mention of two carpenters,* Tsuguno and Mita, who,
especially the latter, were famous experts in Korean architecture,
and who received orders from Yuryaku to erect high buildings. It
appears further that silk curtains (tsumugi-kaki) came into use in
this age for partitioning rooms, and that a species of straw mat
(tatsu-gomo) served for carpet when people were hunting, travelling,
or campaigning.

*It should be remembered that as all Japanese edifices were made of
timber, the carpenter and the architect were one and the same.

SHIPS

Occasional references have been made already to the art of
shipbuilding in Japan, and the facts elicited may be summed up very
briefly. They are that the first instance of naming a ship is
recorded in the year A.D. 274, when the Karano (one hundred feet
long) was built to order of the Emperor Ojin by the carpenters of Izu
promontory, which place was famed for skill in this respect; that the
general method of building was to hollow out tree-trunks,* and that
the arrival of naval architects from Shiragi (A.D. 300) inaugurated a
superior method of construction, differing little from that employed
in later ages.

*Such dug-outs were named maruki-bune, a distinguishing term which
proves that some other method of building was also employed.

VEHICLES

A palanquin (koshi) used by the Emperor Ojin (A.D. 270-310) was
preserved in the Kyoto palace until the year 1219, when a
conflagration consumed it. The records give no description of it, but
they say that Yuryaku and his Empress returned from a hunting
expedition on a cart (kuruma), and tradition relates that a man named
Isa, a descendant in the eighth generation of the Emperor Sujin,
built a covered cart which was the very one used by Yuryaku. It is,
indeed, more than probable that a vehicle which had been in use in
China for a long time must have become familiar to the Japanese at an
early epoch.

MEDICAL ART

For relief in sickness supplication to the gods and the performance
of religious rites were chiefly relied on.