Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/105

 firmly in the angle of the thumb and against the third finger. That stick is immovable, and the other, held like a pen with the thumb and first and second fingers, plays upon it, holding and letting go with a sureness and lightness hardly attained with any other implements. The supreme test of one’s skill is to lift and hold an egg, the round surface making a perfect balance and firm hold necessary, while too much force applied would cause disasters.

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FIG. 3

Innumerable courses of dainty dishes followed, accompanied by cups of hot saké, which our host taught us to drink as healths, offered by each one of the company to the others in turn, rinsing, offering, filling, and raising the cup to the forehead in salutation, and emptying it in three prescribed sips. Custom even requires one to offer a health to the nesans, which they receive with a modest and charming grace.

Midway in the feast three charming girls in dark crape kimonos, strewn with bright maple-leaves, slipped the screens aside and knelt on the mats with the koto, samisen, and tsuzumi drum, on which they played a prelude of sad, slow airs. Then the gilded panels disclosed a troop of dazzling maiko in soft blue kimonos brocaded 89