Beside these evening shows, which occur monthly or oftener, there are also great festivals of the various gods, some celebrated annually, others at intervals of some years. These _matsuri_ last for several days, and during that time the quarter of the city in which they occur seems entirely given over to festivity. The streets are gayly decorated with flags, and bright lanterns--all alike in design and color--are hung in rows from the low eaves of the houses. Young bamboo-trees set along the street, and decorated with bits of bright-colored tissue paper, are a frequent and effective accompaniment of these festivals, and here and there throughout the district are set up high stands, on the tops of which musicians with squeaky flutes, and drums of varying calibre, keep up a din more festive than harmonious. It takes a day or two for the rejoicings to get fully under way, but by the second or third day the fun is at its height, and the streets are thronged with merrymakers. A great deal of labor and strength, as well as ingenuity, is spent in the construction of enormous floats, or _dashi_, lofty platforms of two stories, either set on wheels and drawn by black bullocks or crowds of shouting men, or carried by poles on men's shoulders. Upon the first floor of these great floats is usually a company of dancers, or mummers, who dance, attitudinize, or make faces for the amusement of the crowds that gather along their route; while up above, an effigy of some hero in Japanese history, or the figure of some animal or monster, looks down unmoved upon the absurdities below. Each _dashi_ is attended, not only by the men who draw it, but by companies of others in some uniform costume; and sometimes graceful professional dancing-girls are hired to march in the _matsuri_ procession, or to dance upon the lofty _dashi_. At the time of the festivities which accompanied the promulgation of the Constitution, three days of jollification were held in Tōkyō, days of such universal fun and frolic that it will be known among the common people, to all succeeding generations, as the "Emperor's big _matsuri_." Every quarter of the city vied with every other in the production of gorgeous _dashi_, and the streets were gay with every conceivable variety of decoration, from the little red-and-white paper lanterns, that even the poorest hung before their houses, to the great evergreen arches, set with electric lights, with which the great business streets were spanned thickly from end to end. An evening walk through one of these thoroughfares was a sight to be remembered for a lifetime. The magnificent _dashi_ represented all manner of quaint conceits. A great bivalve drawn by yelling crowds--which halted occasionally--opened and displayed between its shells a group of beautifully dressed girls, who danced one of the pantomimic dances of the country, accompanied by the twanging melodies of the _samisen_. Then slowly the great shell closed,