MEN ENGAGED TO WALK IN FUNERAL PROCESSIONS.
"On the twenty-first day after death a banquet is prepared in honour of the spirit, which is supposed, on that day, to come back to his home, when the entrance doors are shut, for fear any one should come in and vex the spirit. On the twenty-third day three large paper birds are put on high poles in front of the house, to carry the soul to Elysium; and for three days Buddhist priests pray to the ten kings of Buddhist hell to hasten the flight of the departed soul to the Western Paradise.
"The coffin is kept in the house for seven weeks, where an altar is set up, near to which the tablet and portrait of the deceased are put. Banners, which are looked upon as letters of condolence, are fixed upon the walls, and on these the merits of the dead man are inscribed.
"Pictures of the three Buddhas are also to be seen in the house. A lucky place and day have then to be fixed, by fortune-tellers, for the burial, and should these not be forthcoming, the coffin would be placed on a hill till they can be found. Burial is considered of so much importance, that should a man be drowned his spirit would be called back into a figure of wood or paper, and buried with pomp. Before the grave-diggers begin their work, members of the family worship the genii of the mountain, and write letters to these gods, asking them to be so kind as to allow the funeral to take place."
"But how are these letters made to 'arrive?'"
"They are set on fire and burnt."
"Leonard says he saw a number of people dressed in white in the procession."
"Those were the relatives in deep mourning, white, you remember, being the deepest, white and blue lesser, mourning."
