and fasting, mortification of the flesh, abstinence from wine, from
women, and from favourite dishes, are the only passports to rising in
office, prosperity in trade, recovery from sickness, or a happy
marriage with a beloved maiden. Nor will mere faith without works be
efficient. A votive tablet of proportionate value to the favour prayed
for, or a sum of money for the repairs of the shrine or temple, is
necessary to win the favour of the gods. Poorer persons will cut off
the queue of their hair and offer that up; and at Horinouchi, a temple
in great renown some eight or nine miles from Yedo, there is a rope
about two inches and a half in diameter and about six fathoms long,
entirely made of human hair so given to the gods; it lies coiled up,
dirty, moth-eaten, and uncared for, at one end of a long shed full of
tablets and pictures, by the side of a rude native fire-engine. The
taking of life being displeasing to Buddha, outside many of the
temples old women and children earn a livelihood by selling sparrows,
small eels, carp, and tortoises, which the worshipper sets free in
honour of the deity, within whose territory cocks and hens and doves,
tame and unharmed, perch on every jutty, frieze, buttress, and coigne
of vantage.

But of all the marvellous customs that I wot of in connection with
Japanese religious exercises, none appears to me so strange as that of
spitting at the images of the gods, more especially at the statues of
the Ni-ô, the two huge red or red and green statues which, like Gog
and Magog, emblems of strength, stand as guardians of the chief
Buddhist temples. The figures are protected by a network of iron wire,
through which the votaries, praying the while, spit pieces of paper,
which they had chewed up into a pulp. If the pellet sticks to the
statue, the omen is favourable; if it falls, the prayer is not
accepted. The inside of the great bell at the Tycoon's burial-ground,