of the spirit from the body. Each person is supposed to possess seven animal senses which die with him, and three souls, one of which enters elysium, another abides in the tablet (of which we shall speak hereafter) and the third dwells in the tomb. When the priests visit the house, the body is laid upon the floor in the principal room, a tablet is placed by its side and a table stands near it, bearing lamps, incense, and meats. While the priests are reciting prayers to deliver the soul from purgatory and hell; they occasionally call on all persons present to weep and lament. Then the females of the household become excessively clamorous in their grief, alternately wailing in doleful accents, and tittering with new comers. Papers having figures on them, and "Peter's pence” in the form of paper money are burned. White lanterns instead of common red ones, and a slip of paper containing the name, titles, and age of the dead are hung up at the door.

The form of the Chinese coffin resembles the trunk of a tree. It is constructed of boards, three or four inches thick and rounded at the top-making a very substantial receptacle for the dead. Large sums of money are often expended during lifetime, in the purchase and preparation of a coffin. They vary in price from $5 to $2000, according to materials and ornamentation. Bodies are sometimes kept in and about the house for many years. Incense is burned before them, morning and evening. They are placed either on a trestle near the doorway, and protected by a covering in the principal Hall, or in

the ancestral chamber, where they remain until the fortunes of the families improve so as to enable them to bury the remains, or until a lucky place is found, (the Chinese attach a superstitious importance to these lucky places) or until opportunity and means allow survivors to lay them in their patrimonial sepulchres. The coffin was sometimes attached by creditors, and filial sons are known to have sold themselves into temporary or perpetual bondage, to raise the means requisite to redeem the bodies of their pa

rents.

At the expiration of twenty-one days, the funeral procession takes place, accompanied by music closely resembling that of Scotch bagpipes, with the continual repetition of three successive strokes upon a drum. It being superstitiously supposed that money and garments must be buried for the use of the deceased, these valuable objects are, with a wise economy, represented by paper. On the day of the burial a sacrifice of cooked provisions is laid out and the coffin placed near it. The chief mourners clothed in coarse white sack-cloth, approach and kneel before it, knocking their heads upon the ground. Four persons dressed in mourning, hand them incensesticks which are placed in jars. After the male mourners have made their parting prostrations, the females perform the same ceremony, which is afterwards imitated by all the relatives and friends present. The band of music plays during these observances. A tablet inscribed with the name and titles of the deceased, as they are afterwards to be cut on

the tomb, is then placed on the coffin. This tablet is borne in a procession in a gilded sedan, with incense and offerings before it. After the interment the tablet is brought back in procession. If the family is rich, it is placed in the halls of their ancestors; if poor, in some part of the house with incense before it.

Burial sites are selected by geomancers, under whose divination it is supposed that "lucky places" are chosen. Among these "lucky places" are the side of a hill in view of water, or a ravine near hill tops. Care is taken to pick out a spot that water cannot reach. At the south, uncultivated hills are in request for burial grounds, on account of the dry nature of the soil. Graves are nowhere collected in cemetries in cities and towns. The forms of graves vary. Sometimes they are simple tumuli or mounds with tomb-stones set at the head; but in the southern provinces they are oftener constructed in the shape of the Greek letter (omega) resembling in general contour that of a huge arm chair. The back of this supposed chair is the place for the tombstone. The body is buried in the seat; and the sides are built around with masonry. In the north of China the shapes of graves vary more. Some are conical mounds, planted with shrubs and flowers; others of mason work, and shaped like little houses, others are simply square tombs or earthy tumuli.

The burial rites of the Japanese differ widely from those of their Chinese neighbors. They keep the body three days after death, then lay it on its back

in the coffin, with raised head, amid spices and sweet scented herbs: it is then borne to the grave without further ceremony. The Japanese celebrate the memory of deceased parents and relatives by placing all sorts of victuals, raw or dressed, on a table before them; by burning candles by their side; by bowing to them; by giving monthly and anniversary dinners to which the family and friends of the deceased are invited, who appear in their best clothes, having washed and cleaned themselves by way of preparation, for three days before the dinner-during which time they abstain from improper things.

The Japanese indulge in the barbarous belief that whoever attends a dying person or comes into a house where a dead body lies is fusio, for that day, that is impure, and unfit to approach holy places. The worst type of fusio is contracted from the death of parents and near relatives. To purify himself the mourner spends the appointed time in fasting, praying and the solitary study of devotional books. When purified, he throws aside his mourning dress (which is white, like that of the Chinese) and returns to society in festal garments.

The famous Lantern Festival is celebrated towards the end of August. It was originally instituted in memory and honor of the dead, who, it is believed, return annually to their kindred and friends on the first afternoon of these observances, each one visiting the former house and family, where he remains till the second night with the hospitable intention of greeting those ghostly visitors on their

arrival. The Japanese plant stakes of bamboo near all the tombs, upon which stakes they hang a great number of lighted lanterns. These lanterns are kept alight till 9 or 10 o'clock at night. On the evening of the second day (when the visiting spirits are, according to tradition, sent away again by some inexorable fate) they fabricate a small vessel of straw with lights and lanterns in it, which they carry in procession, accompanied by vocal and instrumental music, to the sea shore where it is launched and left to the mercy of wind and water, until it either catches fire and is consumed or is swallowed up by the waves.

III.

The Sunless City.

ONE can come to appreciate the beauty, the gentle, soothing solemnity, of a moral church-yard, only by the contemplation of a contrast. Leave the fresh green cemetery, studded with fragrant flowers, shaded by the pensive cypress, gently breaking into hill and dale, whose easy slopes woo the weary feet to further exploration-take a last look at the western sun whose slanting beams touch the white tombstones with a roseate flush, and walk with us awhile.