Being a pilgrim there is equivalent to being a tourist here, only that to the excitement of doing the country is added a sustaining sense of the meritoriousness of the deed.

Oftener than not the objective point of the devout is the summit of some noted mountain.

For peaks are peculiarly sacred spots in the Shinto faith.

The fact is perhaps an expression of man's instinctive desire to rise, as if the bodily act in some wise betokened the mental action.

The shrine in so exalted a position is of the simplest: a rude hut, with or without the only distinctive emblems of the cult, a mirror typical of the god and the pendent gohei, or zigzag strips of paper, permanent votive offerings of man.