That the pilgrim spirit is thus in a twofold sense wholly national,—first in the sense of only, and then in the sense of all—implies one important fundamental fact: that Japanese pilgrimages are not of Buddhist but of Shintō origin. It is the first hint of the groundlessness of the Buddhist claims to spiritual ownership in the mountain-tops, all of which they assert they first made accessible to mankind. But in spite of the very catholic character of the pretension, the right to such eminent domain grows airier and airier the closer we scrutinize it. The Buddhist idea, like the early Christian, seems to have been, when confronted by a strong popular superstition: Baptize it at once.
The third peculiarity about these pilgrimages consists in their being probably the most unreligious in the world. Speaking profanely, they are peripatetic picnic parties, faintly flavored with piety; just a sufficient suspicion of it to render them acceptable to the easy-going gods. For a more mundanely merry company than one of these same pilgrim bands it would be hard to meet, and to put up at an inn in their neighborhood is to seem bidden to a ball. They are far more
