Some of the Japanese cemeteries are very extensive; and they are generally situated in secluded, picturesque spots, in the neighbourhood of the towns and villages.
The graves are small, round, cemented receptacles; just large enough to receive the jar containing the ashes. If the body is buried (which only happens when the deceased is friendless, or too poor to pay the expenses of cremation), the head is always placed pointing to the north. The tombstones are ordinarily about three feet high; and are either square or circular in shape, resting on square pedestals, in which small holes are cut to contain rice and water. The supplies of these are replenished from time to time, generally by the women of the family, lest the spirit of the deceased should revisit its grave and imagine itself neglected. Sometimes flowers are placed before the graves, and flowering sprigs of peach and plum are stuck in the ground about them.
Like the Chinese, the Japanese burn joss-sticks to propitiate the deities in favour of their departed relatives; and the neighbourhood of a graveyard may generally he detected by the peculiar aromatic odour emitted during the burning of these. For some time after a funeral the relatives daily visit the tomb and intercede for the dead, holding their hands up in the attitude of prayer, and rubbing the palms together as they mutter their monotonous orisons.
CHAPTER VII.
NATIONAL GAMES AND AMUSEMENTS.
Notwithstanding the industrious habits of the Japanese, they are great lovers of pleasure, and much addicted to sight-seeing; theatres and wax-work exhibitions are very numerous, and jugglers, top-spinners, and tumblers, are regular habitués of the streets.
Though they do not allow pleasure to come before business, they do not hesitate to associate it with religious observances; and on solemn festival occasions, the vicinity of even the most sacred temples is occupied by a variety of shows and common stalls, for the sale of sweetmeats, toys, and coloured pictures.
Their principal athletic amusement is wrestling, which may he regarded as the national game of the country. It is very generally practised, and pairs of 'brawny fellows' are to be frequently met with of an evening in the outskirts of towns and villages, either crouched down in the preliminary attitude, which resembles that of angry fighting-cocks, or dragging one another to and fro like frogs struggling over a choice morsel. The game is necessarily a dragging and pulling one, its grand object being to force the opponent beyond a certain boundary.