Within the temple precincts all the candy-sellers and toy-merchants who can find standing-room for a stall are doing a brisk trade. Flags are flying, drums are beating, a _kagura_ dance is going on in the pavilion, about which stands a crowd of youngsters twittering like sparrows, and the steps that lead to the temple itself are as thronged as Jacob's ladder with little ones ascending and descending. Within the shrine the white-robed priests are hard at work from morning to night. A little company forms in the vestibule, goes to the priest in the first room, where they bow and make their offerings, and wait until there is space for them in the inner sanctuary. From within comes the sound of a droning chant, which ends at last, and then a party that has finished its worship issues forth, and those who have been waiting without go in; and when the few minutes of worship are over, and the amulet that rewards the due observance of the day has been received, there are the dances to be seen, and the _o miyagé_ to be purchased, and at last the happy party returns, feeling that one more milestone on the journey of life has been passed propitiously. _Page 30._ The _shirōzaké_ (white _saké_) used for this occasion is a curious drink, thick and white, made from pounded rice, and brewed especially for this feast. Some antiquarians believe that it is simply the earliest form of _saké_, the national beverage, which has been preserved in this ancient observance as the fly is preserved in amber. _Page 31._ The keeping of a feast on the third day of the third month is a custom that has come down from very ancient times. At first the day was set apart for the purification of the people, and a part of the ceremony was the rubbing of the body with bits of white paper, roughly cut into the semblance of a white-robed priest. These paper dolls were believed to take away the sins of the year. When they had been used for purification, they were inscribed with the sex and birth-year of the user and thrown into the river. The third month was also, in early times, the season for cock-fighting among the men, and for doll-playing among the women. The special name by which the dolls of the Doll Feast are called is _O Hina Sama_. Now _hina_ in modern Japanese means a chicken or other young bird, and is never used to mean anything else except the dolls; thus the dolls are shown to be associated with the ancient cock-fighting, an amusement which has now almost gone out, except in the province of Tosa on the island of Shikoku.