MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



429 



by a few, as the French is in our 

 own country ; but the Bonzes, or 

 priests, who are also school- 

 masters, teach the boys their 

 native language, which is a dialect 

 of the Japanese, and is rather soft 

 and harmonious ; and they have 

 nothing of that hesitation in ut- 

 terance, or appearance of choking, 

 which is observed in the former, 

 often requiring the action of the 

 hands to assist the tongue. The 

 orders and records of government 

 are in their own, or Japanese 

 chai"acter j but tliey have books 

 in the Chinese language. 



They burn the bodies of their 

 dead, and deposit their bones in 

 urns, (at least in our neighbour- 

 hood,) in natural vaults, or caverns 

 of the rocks along the sea-shore. 

 The graves of the few Chinese 

 residents here are formed in their 

 own style. 



Crimes are said to be very un- 

 frequent among them ; and they 

 seem to go perfectly unarmed, for 

 we observed no warlike instru- 

 ments of any description ; and our 

 guns, shot, and musquetry, ap- 

 peared to be objects of great 

 wonder to them. It must have 

 been the policy of the Chinese to 

 disarm them, for it appears that, 

 in the first instance, they defended 

 themselves nobly against their 

 attacks, as well as those of the 

 Japanese. Not even a bow or 

 arrow was to be seen ; and, when 

 they observed the effect of fowling- 

 pieces in the hands of some of the 

 gentlemen, they begged they might 

 not kill the birds, which they were 

 always glad to see flying about 

 their houses ; and if we re([uired 

 them to eat, they would send in 

 their stead an additional quantity 

 ©f fo\vls Oft board every day. An 



order was immediately issued by 

 the commanding officer to deiist 

 from this sort of sporting. 



The people of Tatao and the 

 north-east islands are reported to 

 have been in possession of books 

 previous to the Chinese attack on 

 Grand Lewchew, and to have been 

 even more polished than in the 

 principal island. Tatao and Ki- 

 ki-ai are said to produce a sort of 

 cedar, termed kienmou by the 

 Chinese, and iseki by the inhabi- 

 tants, which is considered incor- 

 ruptible, and brings a great price, 

 the columns of the palaces of the 

 grandees being generally foi-med 

 of it. 



A remarkable production is 

 found on this island, about the 

 size of a cherry-tree, bearing 

 flowers, which, alternately on the 

 same day, assume the tint of the 

 rose or the lily, as they are ex- 

 posed to the sun-shine or the 

 shade. The bark of this tree is 

 of a deep green, and the flowers 

 bear a resemblance to our common 

 roses. Some of our party, whose 

 powers of vision were strong (as- 

 sisted by vigorous imaginations) 

 fancied, that by attentive watch- 

 ing, the change of hue from white 

 to red, under the influence of the 

 solar ray, was actually perceptible 

 to the eye ; that they altered their 

 colour, however, in the course of 

 a few hours was very obvious. 



The vessels of these islands, in 

 the general appearance of their 

 hulls and plan of rigging and 

 sails, are precisely the same as we 

 had observed througliout the whole 

 of our track from the Gulf of 

 Pe-tche-lee to Napa-kiang. They 

 had, in common use, canoes hol- 

 lowed from the trunk of a tree, 

 much the same ia shape as those 



of 



