[Illustration:  A fire brigade on its way to A fire.]

Fires occur frequently, notwithstanding the great precautions which are taken for their prevention.  Town and country are divided into districts, for which certain of the inhabitants are responsible.  Each of these has its alarum, with observatory and regular watchers; while every guard-house is provided with a supply of ladders, buckets, and other necessary implements.  Whenever a gale is coming on, the ‘Yoshongyee and Kanabo,’ or ‘watch and fire look-outs,’ who on ordinary occasions only go their rounds by night, parade the towns with rattles and clanking iron instruments, as a warning to the people to keep their fires low.

They have numerous fire-brigades, which are well organized, and remarkably efficient.  In the illustration one of them is seen hurrying along the street to the place of action.  On the right, a watchman is striking an alarum, and another may be noticed, half-way up an observatory in the distance, pointing out the direction of the fire.  The white building on the other side of the street is a fire-proof storehouse, in which the public documents and valuables of the district are deposited whenever a fire breaks out in it.

[Illustration:  Yoshongyee and Kanabo. (Native drawing.)]

A Japanese ‘Shecase,’ or fire-brigade, passing silently along the streets, lighted by its weird red-and-black distinguishing lanterns, is a strange sight.  Some of its members wear armour, with helmets and black-lacquered iron visors, and carry ‘martoe,’ or ‘fire-charms,’ and various necessary implements; others are clad in head-and-shoulder pieces and gauntlets of light chain-armour, to protect them while pulling down and unroofing houses, which is their especial duty.  All have a regular fire costume, from the ‘Oki Yaconin,’ or ‘head man,’ to the bare-legged coolie, who carries the badge of the brigade in large red characters on his back.  On arriving at a fire, a point de tete is selected—­generally a house, on the roof of which the fire-charms are immediately fixed, as if to forbid its further advance.  These charms (the circular white objects with black mouldings) have, of course, as little effect on one element as Canute’s celebrated command had on another; but the people put such faith in their virtue that their presence is a powerful auxiliary in prescribing the limits of fires, which are rarely allowed to pass the bounds marked out by them.  The firemen fight with the flames as they close on the charms, like men determined to stand by their colours to the last, rushing into the burning houses, pulling them down, and drenching the blazing thatch, with great courage and endurance.  When, by thus putting their shoulder to the wheel, the fire is fairly subdued, they turn round and point exultingly to the martoe as the Hercules that has procured the result.  On one occasion, at a fire in the village of Omura, adjoining Yokahama,