Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/132

 court. A few days before the festivity each guest receives a large chrysanthemum-bordered card:

On an accompanying slip are these instructions:

The guests having assembled in the gardens at the hour indicated, the Kimigayo, or national anthem, announces the approach of the imperial personages. The Emperor, the Empress, and their suite, passing between the rows of guests and the flower-tents, lead the way to marquees on the lawn, where a collation is served, the Emperor addressing a few remarks to the ministers and envoys as he greets them. Sometimes special presentations are made to him and the Empress, and often the Empress summons an envoy’s wife or a peeress to her, while she sits at table. After another tour of the flower-tents, the company, following the imperial lead, desert the gardens. Calls of ceremony must be made upon the wife of the premier within one week after these parties.

When the Empress and her ladies wore the old dress the garden-parties at the palace were wonderfully picturesque and distinctly Japanese. It was my good fortune to attend the chrysantheinum fête of 1885, when the Empress and her suite made their last appearance in the red hakama and loose brocade kimonos of the old regime. The day was warm, with the brilliant autumnal tints peculiar to Japan, clear and sunny. There were rows of chrysanthemum beds in the Asakasa gardens, 116