Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/228

210 relatives go out to meet them many miles down the road, and then wait sometimes several days at a convenient village till the band heaves in sight. The girls are received with praise instead of blame, and amid great rejoicings escorted into town; a reception which conduces to recurrence of the escapade.

Each lowland shrine has its special festival season, although it may also be visited advantageously at other times. Pilgrimage to the shrines at Ise is made at the time the cherries blow. Then the great highways that lead thither are as gay with pilgrim folk beneath as their flower aisles are bright with blossom overhead. The progress of each band is one long triumphal march. As it nears an inn where it purposes to spend the night, runners are dispatched ahead to notify the place of its coming, which instantly becomes all bustle to receive it. Hastily donning their best clothes, the maids and other servants scamper out to meet the band and escort it in with festival pomp. A feast follows in the evening quite as spirituous as spiritual, pointed with pious song right secularly sung. At the end of it there is