"I believe somewhere about here are more musicians, then comes a man scattering pieces of paper fastened to tinfoil. This is supposed to be mock-money for hungry ghosts, the souls of those people who have died at corners of the streets, and this money is to make peace with them, so that they shall not injure the soul of the man now being buried. The eldest son carries a staff, whilst a person walks on either side to support him."
"But Leonard said he saw a white cock, when he could not help laughing. What could this be for?"
"The cock is also carried to call the soul to go with the body. Behind the eldest son comes the bier, carried by men or drawn by horses.
"Many other persons follow. All the people that can, go in the procession. Women with small feet, unless carried on their slaves' backs, can only go a short way. At the grave, grains of rice are scattered over the coffin, when the priest and all the people lift the cock and bend their bodies forward three times. The tablet is taken out of the chair, on which the nearest relation makes a mark with a red pencil; then the sons kneel down, and a priest, if present, addresses them."
"Then a priest is not obliged to go to the funeral?"
"No; sometimes only a man skilled in geomancy is present. Geomancy is a kind of foretelling things, by means of little dots first made on the ground and then on paper. The tablet is marked, I believe, to bring good luck to the sons, and then every one knocks his head on the ground and does homage to it."
Sybil was looking very serious, though she was smiling too.
"Oh, father!" she said, "how much you, and other missionaries, will have to teach these people! What a pity it is that they cannot know that the soul is never buried, and that they can't learn to worship and pray to God, Who would send them such real happiness in answer to their prayers!"
"It is indeed, my child," was the missionary's answer.
"And is anything more done for the dead after this except worship being paid to them?"