The Writings of Lafcadio Hearn

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill NOTES OF A TRIP TO KYOTO I It had been intended to celebrate in spring the eleven hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Kyoto; but the outbreak of pestilence caused postponement of the festival to the autumn, and the celebration began on the fifteenth of the tenth month. Little festival medals of nickel, made to be pinned to the breast, like military decorations, were for sale at half a yen each. These medals entitled the wearers to special cheap fares on all the Japanese railroad and steamship lines, and to other desirable privileges, such as free entrance to wonderful palaces, gardens, and temples. On the twenty-third of October I found myself in possession of a medal, and journeying to Kyoto by the first morning train, which was over-crowded with people eager to witness the great historical processions announced for the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth. Many had to travel standing, but the crowd was good-natured and merry. A number of my fellow-passengers were Osaka geisha going to the festival. They diverted themselves by singing songs and by playing ken with some male acquaintances, and their kittenish pranks and funny cries kept everybody amused. One had an extraordinary voice, with which she could twitter like a sparrow. You can always tell by the voices of women conversing anywhere ? in a hotel, for example ? if there happen to be any geisha among them, because the peculiar timbre given by professional training is immediately recognizable. The wonderful character of that training, however, is fairly manifested only when the really professional tones of the voice are used ? falsetto tones, never touching, but often curiously sweet. Now, the street singers, the poor blind women who sing ballads with the natural voice only, use tones that draw tears. The voic...