the district whence you spring, etc., etc."_

"I worship and implore you," sings Madame Prune, "Oh
Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, royal power. Cease not to protect your faithful
people, who are ready to sacrifice themselves for their country. Grant
that I may become as holy as yourself, and drive from my mind all dark
thoughts. I am a coward and a sinner; purge me from my cowardice and
sinfulness, even as the north wind drives the dust into the sea. Wash
me clean from all my iniquities, as one washes away uncleanness in the
river of Kamo. Make me the richest woman in the world. I believe in
your glory, which shall be spread over the whole earth, and illuminate
it forever for my happiness. Grant me the continued good health of my
family, and above all, my own, who, oh Ama-Térace-Omi-Kami, do worship
and adore you, and only you, etc., etc."

Here follow all the Emperors, all the Spirits, and the interminable
list of the ancestors.

In her trembling old woman's falsetto, Madame Prune sings out all
this, without omitting anything, at a pace which almost takes away her
breath.

And very strange it is to hear: at length it seems hardly a human
voice; it sounds like a series of magic formulas, unwinding themselves
from an inexhaustible roller, and escaping to take flight through the
air. By its very weirdness, and by the persistency of its incantation,
it ends by producing in my scarcely awakened brain, an almost
religious impression.

Every day I wake to the sound of this Shintoist litany chanted beneath