Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/225

Rh we had been enthralled by this canonisation of dolldom the priest had been writing, and now handed to the mother a slip of paper attached to a thin wand of bamboo. Bowing low, she took the paper, pressed it to her forehead, and crossed the enclosure to the stone chamber known as the Tortoise Tower, for there those who look down over the circular balustrade into a central cavity will perceive clear water running from the mouth of a stone tortoise. Into that sacred stream which flows from earth to heaven the paper drops, being inscribed with the new name which is bestowed on every believer after death; and the poor woman goes away not a little comforted, for now at least her child is sure of an orthodox introduction to paradise. Thus neither babe nor emperor is exempt from etiquette, whether life or death be the master of ceremonies. Inequalities persist in the very funeral rites, though in their hearts the celebrants must feel that the geisha's flower-song is of universal application:

The beauties of the Inland Sea have been so often and so graphically described, that detailed praise is superfluous. Every one has heard of the thousands of islets, on which are perched villages, villas, and pines innumerable; of the hillsides, geometrically subdivided into rice-fields; of the junks with pleated and divided sails, which dart like white birds through the exquisite blue plain; of the strange mirage, which throws upon the sky at certain hours, when the heaven above and the waters beneath melt into a vast