“The actors are commonly girls, taken out of the courtesans’ houses, and boys from those streets at whose expense the solemnity is performed. They are all magnificently clad, in variously colored silken gowns, suitable to the characters they are to present; and it must be owned that, generally speaking, they act their part with an assurance and becoming dexterity, not to be exceeded, nay, scarce to be paralleled, by the best European actors. “The streets which bear the expense make their appearance in the following order: First of all is carried a rich canopy, or else an umbrella, made of silk, being the palladium of the street. Over it, in the middle, is placed a shield, whereupon is writ, in large characters, the name of the street. Next to the canopy follow the musicians, masked, and in proper liveries. The music is both vocal and instrumental. The instruments are chiefly flutes of different sorts, and small drums; now and then a large drum, cymbals and bells, are brought in among the rest. The instrumental music is so poor and lamentable that it seems much easier to satisfy their gods than to please a musical ear. Nor is the vocal part much preferable to the instrumental, for although they keep time tolerably, and sing according to some notes, yet they do it in so very slow a manner that the music seems to be rather calculated to regulate their action, and the motions of their body in their ballets and dances, wherein they are very ingenious and dexterous, and little inferior to our European dancers, excepting only that they seem to want a little more action and swiftness in their feet. “The musicians are followed by the necessary machines and the whole apparatus for the ensuing representations, the largest being carried by laboring people, the lesser—as benches, staffs, flowers, and the like—by the children of the inhabitants, neatly clad. Next follow the actors themselves, and after them all the inhabitants of the street in a body in their holiday clothes and garments of ceremony. To make the appearance so much the greater the procession is closed by a considerable number of people who carry stools and other things, walking two and two. [Illustration: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS: TWO STYLES OF DRUMS; A FLUTE-PLAYER] “The dances and shows of each street commonly last about three quarters of an hour, and being over, the company marches off in the same order they came in, to make way for the appearance and shows of another street, which is again followed by another, and so on. All the streets strive to outdo each other in a magnificent retinue and surprising scenes. The processions and shows begin early in the morning, and the whole ends about noon.” The following were among the presentations by the different streets at the _matsuri_ at which Kämpfer was present.