About the end of July or beginning of August, the opening of the boating season on the River Sumida is celebrated with a grand display of fireworks, which is attended by large crowds from all parts of the city, while the tea-houses around are full of guests. In August the morning-glory is in full bloom, and people repair at dawn to Iriya in the north of Tokyo to look at the flowers for which it is noted as the buds untwist into open blossoms, and pass on their way home by Shinobazu Pond, close to Uyeno Park, and watch the lotus flowers burst open with a loud report. On the twenty-sixth day of the seventh month of the old lunar calendar, which falls ordinarily on some day late in August or early in September, people climb up a hill at night or go to the water-side to see the moon rise; for it is considered lucky to catch a glimpse of the three images of Amitabha which are said to be visible for an instant before the moon comes into sight. On the fifteenth of the eighth month when the moon is always full, offerings of fifteen dumplings, soy beans, and persimmons are set before the moon and odes composed in praise of the beautiful satellite. Indeed, the eighth month is poetically called the “month of the moon-view.” [Illustration: OFFERINGS TO THE FULL MOON.] On the ninth day of the ninth month was observed in the old days the Feast of the Chrysanthemum, when a party was held in the Imperial Palace for looking at the flower and partaking of an infusion of chrysanthemums in _sake_; but this custom has died out, and the Imperial chrysanthemum party is now given in the latter part of November. On the thirteenth of the same lunar month occurs the last of the three moon-viewing festivals, when offerings similar to those on the fifteenth of the preceding month are made, the only difference being that the number of dumplings is thirteen instead of fifteen. People go out at this time to look at the Seven Herbs of Autumn, the principal of which is the _lespedeza bicolor_ with its pretty little red flowers; the other six are the _miscanthus sinensis_, _pueraria thunbergiana_, _dianthus superbus_, _patrinia seabiosœfolia_, _cupatorium chinense_, and _platycodon grandiflorum_. The autumnal equinox is celebrated in the same manner as the vernal.