The police were not satisfied with seeing my passport, but must
also see me, and four of them paid me a polite but domiciliary
visit the evening of my arrival. That evening the sound of
drumming was ceaseless, and soon after I was in bed Ito announced
that there was something really worth seeing, so I went out in my
kimono and without my hat, and in this disguise altogether escaped
recognition as a foreigner. Kuroishi is unlighted, and I was
tumbling and stumbling along in overhaste when a strong arm cleared
the way, and the house-master appeared with a very pretty lantern,
hanging close to the ground from a cane held in the hand. Thus
came the phrase, "Thy word is a light unto my feet."

We soon reached a point for seeing the festival procession advance
towards us, and it was so beautiful and picturesque that it kept me
out for an hour. It passes through all the streets between 7 and
10 p.m. each night during the first week in August, with an ark, or
coffer, containing slips of paper, on which (as I understand)
wishes are written, and each morning at seven this is carried to
the river and the slips are cast upon the stream. The procession
consisted of three monster drums nearly the height of a man's body,
covered with horsehide, and strapped to the drummers, end upwards,
and thirty small drums, all beaten rub-a-dub-dub without ceasing.
Each drum has the tomoye painted on its ends. Then there were
hundreds of paper lanterns carried on long poles of various lengths
round a central lantern, 20 feet high, itself an oblong 6 feet
long, with a front and wings, and all kinds of mythical and
mystical creatures painted in bright colours upon it--a
transparency rather than a lantern, in fact. Surrounding it were
hundreds of beautiful lanterns and transparencies of all sorts of