Japanese children have many holidays and festivals, and they enjoy themselves very much on these joyous occasions. With their beautiful dresses of silk shining in the sun, a crowd of them looks like a great bed of flowers. Mr. Menpes speaks of a merry-making which he saw: "It was a festival for girls under ten, and there were hundreds of children, all with their kimonos tucked up, showing their scarlet petticoats, and looking for all the world like a mass of poppies.... Two rows or armies of these girls were placed several yards distant from each other in this long emerald-green field, and in the space between them stood two servants, each holding a long bamboo pole, and suspending from its top a flat, shallow drum, covered with tissue-paper. "Presently two young men teachers appeared on the scene, carrying two baskets of small many-coloured balls, which they threw down on the grass between the children and the drums. Then a signal was given, and all the girls started running down the field at full tilt towards one another, pouncing on the balls as they ran, and throwing them with all their force up at the paper drums. "After a time, when a perfect shower of balls had passed through the tissue drums, quite demolishing them, a shower of coloured papers, miniature lanterns, paper umbrellas, and flags came slowly fluttering down among the children on to their jet-black bobbing heads and into their eager outstretched hands. Never have I seen anything more beautiful than these gay, brightly-clad little people, packed closely together like a cluster of flowers in the brilliant sparkling sunshine, with their pretty upturned faces watching the softly falling rain of coloured toys." CHAPTER XI THE FEAST OF DOLLS AND THE FEAST OF FLAGS On the third day of the third month there is great excitement in every Japanese household which numbers a girl among its domestic treasures: for the Feast of Dolls has come, the great festival for dolls. On this day the most beautiful dolls and dolls' houses are fetched from the godown, where the family furniture is kept, and are on exhibition for a short time, set out on shelves covered with scarlet cloth. [Illustration: FIGHTING TOPS] These dolls are the O-Hina, the honourable dolls. They are kept with the greatest care, and in some families there are dolls which are centuries old. As each doll is dressed exactly in the costume of its age, and is furnished with belongings which represent in miniature the furniture of that age, such a collection has great historic value, and is used to teach the children how their ancestors looked and lived.