English: From original book: "A more minute description of the mats may be given at this point. A brief allusion has already been made to them in the remarks on house-construction. These mats, or tatami, are made very carefully of straw, matted and bound together with stout string to the thickness of two inches or more, — the upper surface being covered with a straw-matting precisely like the Canton matting we are familiar with, though in the better class of mats of a little finer quality. The edges are trimmed true and square, and the two longer sides are bordered on the upper surface and edge with a strip of black linen an inch or more in width (fig. 100). The making of mats is quite a separate trade from that of making the straw-matting with which they are covered. The mat-maker may often be seen at work in front of his door, crouching down to a low frame upon which the mat rests. "