the way, kept up to this day in the symbolic sprinkling of salt over persons returning from a funeral--salt representing pure water, as our name for it, 'the flower of the waves,' well indicates. Our love of cleanliness and of bathing might be also recognised in this early custom. Impurity, whether mental or corporal, has always been regarded as a great evil, and even as a sin. Now one of the most important results of the purification of the god Izanagi was the birth of three important deities through the washing of his eyes and nose. The Moon-God and the Sun-Goddess emerged from his washing his right and left eyes, while Susanowo, their youngest brother, owed his existence to the washing of his nose; three illustrious children to whom the divine father trusted the dominion of night, day, and the seas. The last-mentioned deity, whose name would mean in English 'Prince Impetuous,' lost his father's favour by his obstinate longing to see Izanami, the divine mother, in Hades, and was expelled from the father's presence. He eventually went up to heaven to pay a visit to his sister, the Sun-Goddess, whom he gravely offended by his monstrous outrages on her person, and who was consequently so angry that she shut herself up in a rocky chamber, thus causing darkness in the world outside. In accordance with the deliberate plans worked out by an assembly of a myriad gods, she was at last allured from her cavern by the sounds of wild merriment caused by the burlesque dancing of a female deity, and day reigned once more. The now repenting offender was driven down from heaven, and he wandered about the earth. It was during this wandering that in Idzumo he, like Perseus, rescued a beautiful young maid from an eight-headed serpent. He won her hand and lived very happily with her ever after.