244 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Practical jokes usually accompany the entertainment. Some- 

 times a guest enters disguised as an aged man, and after persuad- 

 ing the duenna to bring the bride close to him by a plea that his 

 sight is very dim, he suddenly tosses off his cap and spectacles and 

 appears as a hilarious youth. This creates much merriment. 

 Another popular joke is to leave a bundle of fire-crackers under 

 the bedstead, with a slow match so placed as to explode them after 

 midnight, and this is often accompanied by an artificial shower 

 falling through the roof upon the bridal couch. When the guests 

 depart they frequently carry with them articles which they know 

 the groom will require next day, and which he is bound to redeem 

 from them with packages of confectionery. It is said that a merry 

 company of the fellow-students of a groom decoyed him from his 

 house after his wedding-supper, and fastened him to a tree in a 

 copse, so that he should not be able to return home that night. 

 His parents finally induced them to go to release him, but when 

 they arrived at the copse they found he had been eaten by a tiger. 

 To avoid probable discomforts, the groom sometimes conceals him- 

 self from supper-time until after the departure of all the guests. 

 The fate of Ginevra would be possible to a Chinese groom, but 

 not to a Chinese bride. 



On the second day the young pair worship the images of the 

 ancestors in the main room of the house, and make obeisance to 

 each of the senior members of the family. In the afternoon the 

 last presents are sent off from the groom's family to the bride's 

 parents. They include pork, fish, cakes, and confectionery, ac- 

 cording with the amount stipulated at the time of betrothal. Dur- 

 ing the second and third days all who choose may enter the house 

 and view the bride, and the crowd of spectators is sometimes large. 

 They say : 



" We look at the new, and not at the old ; 

 "We all have, at home, old things to behold." 



The third day is a busy one for the bride, as she must then 

 formally begin her domestic duties. Early in the morning she 

 washes clothes for herself and her husband, under the direction of 

 the duenna. Then this mistress of ceremonies takes her hand, 

 holds it upon the long handle of a ladle, and stirs up the food in a 

 jar, from which she is to feed and fatten pigs. She meanwhile 

 recites a rhyme, of which this is a close version : 

 " Stir up the swill, make the jar fume ; 

 Raise hogs that are bigger than cows. 

 Stir deep and long, stir into spume ; 

 Give thousand-weight swine to your spouse." 



At noonday the bride cooks the family dinner, under the super- 

 intendence of her mother-in-law. In the intervals between other 

 occupations she begins and completes the making of a pair of 



