Everywhere
the children, in their finest clothes, march through the streets in
processions, carrying fans and banners and lanterns, and chanting as
they march; but most great cities have their own form of celebration.
At Nagasaki the tombs of all those who have died during the past year
are illuminated with large bright lanterns on the first night of the
celebrations. On the second and third nights all tombs are illuminated,
and the burial-grounds are one glorious blaze of many-coloured lights. The
avenues leading to the burial-grounds are turned into fair-grounds, with
decorations and booths, stalls and tea-houses, each illuminated by many
brilliant lanterns. Fires are lighted on the hills, rockets shoot up on
every hand, and vast crowds of people gather in the cemeteries to feast and
make merry and drink sake in honour of their ancestors, whose spirits they
suppose to surround them and be present at the festival. At the end of the
feast a very striking scene takes place: the preparations for the departure
of the dead.
"But on the third vigil, suddenly, at about two o'clock in the morning,
long processions of bright lanterns are seen to descend from the heights
and group themselves on the shores of the bay, while the mountains
gradually return to obscurity and silence. It is fated that the dead
should embark and disappear before twilight. The living have plaited them
thousands of little ships of straw, each provisioned with some fruit and a
few pieces of money.
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