Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/229

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PILGRIMAGES.
211

thing very like a break-down by the whole company, maids and all. The pilgrims rising, make a ring about the maids in the middle and then walk round and round chanting the Ise hymn, while the maids join lustily in the chorus. In this unpuritanical fashion is each evening brought to a close.

Upon their departure the next morning the pilgrims present everybody with souvenirs of themselves: the inn with the club banner and the maids with their club visiting-cards. Especially is the president to the fore with this charming attention. Both kinds of keepsakes are carried in large quantities by the band, and distributed unstintedly. For not to scatter such mementos of themselves along their route would be, in pilgrim estimation, to travel in vain. The landlord beams on the threshold, and the maids, all smiles, attend the band some distance out, and then throw good wishes after it till it disappears down the road.

But the supreme moment is when the company reënters in triumph its native town. Careful account has been kept of its whereabouts, and just before it is due horses strangely and gorgeously caparisoned