Once a year the jolly seven meet together to talk over old times, relate their adventures, and have a luxuriant supper. Then they proceed to business, which is to arrange all the marriages for the coming year. They have a great many skeins of red and white silk, which are the threads of fate of those to be married. The white threads are the men, the red are the women. At first they select the threads very carefully, and tie a great many pairs or couples neatly and strongly together, so that the matches are perfect. All such marriages of threads make happy marriages among human beings. But by and by they get tired and lazy, and instead of tying the knots carefully, they hurry up the work and then jumble them carelessly, and finally toss and tangle up all the rest. This is the reason why so many marriages are unhappy. This work done they begin to frolic like big boys. Benten plays the guitar, and Bishamon lies down on the floor resting upon his elbows to hear it. Hotei drinks wine out of a shallow red cup which is as wide as a dinner plate. Daikoku and Fukoruku Jin begin to wrestle, and when Daikoku gets his man down he pounds his big head with an empty gourd, while Toshi-toku and Ebisu begin to eat tai fish. When this fun is over, Benten and Fukoruku Jin play a game of checkers, while the others look on and bet; except Hotei, the fat fellow, who is asleep. Finally they get ashamed of themselves for gambling, and after a few days, the party breaks up and each one goes to his regular business again. THE SACRED MOUNTAIN. Almost the first object which meets the gaze of the traveler after crossing the Pacific Ocean and as he nears the land, is the matchless mountain, Fuji-yama. Its snow-covered heights rise some 13,000 feet above the sea. To the people of Japan this is the sacred mountain. It is depicted on all their lacquer-ware, their china-ware and their drawings. It is described in all their poems and sacred books. It has a strong hold on the people. It is a sleeping volcano. Nearly 2,000 feet of its sides are cultivated. Then comes a wide belt of forest. The ascent of the mountain is a sacred pilgrimage, and there are accordingly a number of roads to the top, with nine huts on each road. The pilgrims are dressed in white robes, and pray to the rising sun while climbing the mountain sides. Sometimes one may see several hundreds of Shinto pilgrims in their white robes turning out from their shelters, and joining their chants to the rising sun. The view of the long sweeping sides of this mountain, rising from an almost level plain and climbing away to the clouds, through which it thrusts its snow-crowned top, is one of the grandest in the world. [Illustration: THE SACRED MOUNTAIN, FUJI-YAMA.] SHINTO TEMPLES AND GATE-WAYS.