The prayers and pious orisons of the Shintō priests were heard; the Duke arrived and departed in unbroken health and spirits; all evil influences, all malignant _oni_ and _bakémono_ (devils and ghosts) had been successfully exorcized. When I read my old notes of all these things I seem to be looking across a long vista of forgotten centuries into the gloom of prehistoric times; I am transported back into the days when the God Hachiman decided the fates of battles, when Inari Sama and his foxes ruled the harvest, and Benten was the supreme Queen Goddess of beauty. Playgoing in the old days, before the restoration in 1868, was entirely confined to the lower classes; no gentleman could afford to be seen in a public theatre; in private, it is true that famous actors would occasionally be hired to give a representation at the _yashiki_ of some rich noble, to whom the ordinary performance would be forbidden. There were, however, certain classical dances and plays which were specially performed in theatres attached to the palaces. The _bugaku_, for instance, were dances or pantomime plays the performance of which was confined to the Emperor’s palace, so that very few Japanese, and those only of the highest rank, ever witnessed them.[19] The Nō, on the other hand, were a kind of classical opera performed on stages called _nō butai_, which were attached to the _yashiki_ of some of the great nobles. These operas—I know no better name for them—are of the greatest antiquity. They are supposed to recall the performances by which the Sun Goddess was lured out of the cave in which she had hidden in order to escape from the persecutions of her turbulent brother—a legend which is supposed to have been the poetic explanation of the first eclipse. They had, moreover, a religious intention in the first instance, having been arranged at the Emperor’s command by one Hada Rawakatsu in the last decade of the sixth century. A special performance of Nō was given in honour of the Duke of Edinburgh in the _yashiki_ of the Prince of Kishiu—which had the reputation of being, after the Castle, the most luxurious palace in Yedo.