becomes visible only at a certain distance above the ground; and it
wavers arid lengthens and undulates in the conceptions of artists, like
a vapour moved by wind. Occasionally phantom women figure in picture.-
books in the likeness of living women; but these are riot true ghosts.
They are fox-women or other goblins; and their supernatural character is
suggested by a peculiar expression of the eyes arid a certain impossible
elfish grace.

Little children in Japan, like little children in all countries keenly
enjoy the pleasure of fear; and they have many games in which such
pleasure forms the chief attraction. Among these is 0-bake-goto, or
Ghost-play. Some nurse-girl or elder sister loosens her hair in front,
so as to let it fall over her face, and pursues the little folk with
moans and weird gestures, miming all the attitudes of the ghosts of the
picture-books.

8

As the hair of the Japanese woman is her richest ornament, it is of all
her possessions that which she would most suffer to lose; and in other
days the man too manly to kill an erring wife deemed it vengeance enough
to turn her away with all her hair shorn off. Only the greatest faith or
the deepest love can prompt a woman to the voluntary sacrifice of her
entire chevelure, though partial sacrifices, offerings of one or two
long thick cuttings, may be seen suspended before many an Izumo shrine.

What faith can do in the way of such sacrifice, he best knows who has
seen the great cables, woven of women's hair, that hang in the vast
Hongwanji temple at Kyoto. And love is stronger than faith, though much
less demonstrative. According to ancient custom a wife bereaved