94 DWELLINGS AND JOSS-HOUSES. [1844. 



pipes and huge clam shells for braziers and spittoons, 

 debating among themselves some knotty point of interest 

 or policy. 



"Their dwellings are surrounded with stone walls, 

 moss-grown, or covered with creeping plants, and nume- 

 rous shady trees springing up from among the houses. 

 These latter are of wood and cane, neatly thatched, 

 and constructed with very considerable pretensions to 

 domestic comfort. They are of one story, and the floors, 

 a little elevated from the ground, are covered with well- 

 made mats. We rested several nights in the temples of 

 this people, for though suspicious of strangers and jea- 

 lously inclined on other points, they scrupled not to offer 

 us even the sacred vessels of the shrine for vulgar uses, 

 and seemed ignorant of such a crime as sacrilege. 

 Our profanity, in using these Joss-Houses as dining 

 rooms and dormitories, was entirely the result of their 

 own free will and invitation. In every village, near the 

 temple, are small stone mausolea, where the edicts of the 

 Emperor they bow to are carefully consumed with fire, 

 in order that the precious relics may not be desecrated 

 by strewing the common ground. 



" The soil of these islands is arable, and troops of half- 

 wild horses scamper over the grassy plains, whils herds 

 of large black oxen browse on the hill sides. They 

 plough their Batata fields with a single ox, rudely and 

 superficially, cultivate a few paddy fields, weave a kind 

 of cloth with a frame and shuttle, and manufacture 

 seines and other fishing gear. 



"The variety and beauty of the vegetation clothing 

 the sides of the mountains of Pa-tchung-san, and its 



