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52 paper-wadding, the ends being gathered in at the top with a short tortoise-shell or lacquered bar passing horizontally through it; but the lightest and most common coiffure is the ichogayeshi, or the inverted maidenhair-leaf, which requires no false hair, but consists of two tresses parted at the crown, made into rings, and gathered in like the others at the top. Young girls under fifteen wear the tojin coiffure, which is the ichogayeshi, with the rings spread out and pressed down in the middle by a third tress. Besides these, are the mitsuwa, or the three rings, which is a combination of the marumage and ichogayeshi, and the tenjinmage, which consists of two looped tresses held down by a hair-pin passing through a third at the crown. In every case, the tress over the forehead is bound into a tuft which is held back by a comb; the side-locks are swollen out; and the back-hair is brought stiffly down with a jerk before the whole hair is tied at the crown. A string of little coral or other balls is fastened round the root behind the chignon, and a fancy piece of cloth also adorns the neck of the marumage, mitsuwa, and sometimes shimada. Hair-pins of gold, silver, or brass, surmounted with coral or other ornaments, are also worn. The hair is dressed every third or fourth day and causes quite as much concern to its wearer as her dresses.

The geisha has little history. She came into existence about the middle of last century and soon acquired popularity. Her first regular home was in the purlieus of the shrine of the War-god Hachiman, in Fukagawa, on the east side of the River Sumida, not far from which the annual wrestling-matches were held last century. Little pleasure-boats would put off from this quarter and, going up the river, moor at a landing-stage at the entrance of a tributary of the Sumida. Here boat-houses grew into tea-houses, which were frequented by the Fukagawa geisha; but before long, Yanagibashi, as the outlet is called from the bridge spanning it, produced its own geisha and, after a