Akira leaves me a moment to speak with one of the temple attendants, and presently returns with a curious lacquered box, about a foot in length, and four inches wide on each of its four sides. There is only a small hole in one end of it; no appearance of a lid of any sort.
'Now,' says Akira, 'if you wish to pay two sen, we shall learn our future lot according to the will of the gods.'
I pay the two sen, and Akira shakes the box. Out comes a narrow slip of bamboo, with Chinese characters written thereon.
'Kitsu!' cries Akira. 'Good-fortune. The number is fifty-and-one.'
Again he shakes the box; a second bamboo slip issues from the slit.
'Dai kitsu! great good-fortune. The number is ninety-and-nine.
Once more the box is shaken; once more the oracular bamboo protrudes.
'Kyo!' laughs Akira. 'Evil will befall us. The number is sixty-and-four.'
He returns the box to a priest, and receives three mysterious papers, numbered with numbers corresponding to the numbers of the bamboo slips. These little bamboo slips, or divining-sticks, are called mikuji.
This, as translated by Akira, is the substance of the text of the paper numbered fifty-and-one: