The fifteenth day of the seventh Japanese month is a festival, devoted to the honor of parents and ancestors. Every Japanese whose parents are still living considers this a happy day. People regale themselves and their children with fish. Married sons and daughters, or adopted sons, send presents to their parents. On the evening of the 13th, the ihai are taken from their cases, and a repast set before them of vegetables and the fruits then ripening. In the middle is set a vase, in which perfumes are burnt, and other vases containing flowers. The next day, meals of rice, tea, and other food are regularly served to the ihai, as to living guests. Towards evening, lanterns, suspended from long bamboos, are lighted before each hiseki, or gravestone, and refreshments are also placed there. This is repeated on the fifteenth. Before daylight of the sixteenth the articles placed at the graves are packed into small boats of straw, provided with sails of paper or cloth, which are earned in procession, with vocal and instrumental music and loud cries, to the waterside, where they are launched, by way of dismissing the souls of the dead, who are supposed now to return to their graves. “This festival,” says Titsingh, speaking of its celebration at Nagasaki, “produces a highly picturesque effect. Outside the town, the view of it from the island Deshima is one of the most beautiful. The spectator would almost imagine that he beheld a torrent of fire pouring from the hill, owing to the immense number of small boats that are carried to the shore to be turned adrift on the sea. In the middle of the night, and when there is a brisk wind, the agitation of the water causing all these lights to dance to and fro, produces an enchanting scene. The noise and bustle in the town, the sound of gongs and the voices of the priests, combine to form a discord that can scarcely be conceived. The whole bay seems to be covered with _ignes fatui_. Though these barks have sails of paper, or stronger stuff, very few of them pass the place where our ships lie at anchor. In spite of the guards, thousands of paupers rush into the water to secure the small copper coin and other things placed in them. Next day, they strip the barks of all that is left, and the tide carries them out to sea. Thus terminates this ceremony.”[80] CHAPTER XLII