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and dark, and the last boy, it is said, always sees a demon, a huge face, or something terrible. In the Kon-demashi or “Soul-examination,” a number of boys, during the day plant some flags in different parts of a graveyard, under a lonely tree, or by a haunted hill-side. At night, they meet together, and tell stories about ghosts, goblins, devils, &c., and at the conclusion of each tale, when the imagination is wrought up, the boys, one at a time, must go out in the dark and bring back the flags, until all are brought in.
On the third day of the third month is held the Hina matsuri. This is the day especially devoted to the girls, and to them it is the greatest day in the year. It has been called in some foreign works on Japan, the “Feast of Dolls.” Several days before the matsuri, the shops are gay with the images bought for this occasion and which are on sale only at this time of year. Every respectable family have a number of these splendidly dressed images, which are from four inches to a foot in height, and which accumulate from generation to generation. When a daughter is born in the house during the previous year, a pair of hina or images are purchased for the little girl, which she plays with until grown up. When she is married her hina are taken with her to her husband’s house, and she gives them to her children, adding to the stock as her family increases. The images are made of wood, or enamelled clay. They represent the Mikado and his wife; the kuge or old Kioto nobles, their wives and daughters, the court minstrels and various personages in Japanese mythology and history. A great many other toys, representing all the articles in use in a Japanese lady’s chamber, the service of the eating table, the utensils of the kitchen, travelling apparatus &c. some of them very elaborate and costly, are also exhibited and played with on this day. The girls make offerings of sake and dried rice &c. to the effigies of the emperor and empress, and then spend the day with toys, mimicking the whole round of Japanese female life, as that of child, maiden, wife, mother and grandmother. In some old Japanese families in which I have visited, the
