-CHINA. 9^ 



Above this is worn a long satin robe, which is gracefully gathered 

 round the waist and confined with a sash. These different parts of 

 their apparel are usually each of a different colour, in the selection 

 and contrast of which the wearers chiefly display their taste. They 

 suffer their nails to grow, but reduce their eye-brows to an arched line. 



Marriages. ...The parties never see each other, in China, till the 

 bargain is concluded by the parents, and that is generally when they 

 are perfect children. When the nuptials are celebrated, the lady is 

 carried (as yet unseen by the bridegroom) in a guilt and gaudy chair f 

 hung round with festoons of artificial flowers ; and followed by rela> 

 tions, attendants and servants, bearing the paraphernalia, being the 

 only portion given with a daughter in marriage by her parents. Next 

 to being barren, the greatest scandal is to bring females into the 

 world ; and if a woman of poor family happens to have three or four 

 girls successively, it not unfrequently happens that she will expose 

 them on the high roads, or throw them into a river ; for, in China? 

 parents who cannot support their female children are allowed to cast 

 them into the river ; but they fasten a gourd to the child, that it may 

 float on the water ; and there are often compassionate people of for- 

 tune, who are moved by the cries of the children to save them from 

 death. 



Funerals. ...The Chinese, among other superstitions, are particu- 

 larly scrupulous about the time and place of burying their dead. The 

 delay occasioned before these difficult points are ascertained, has of- 

 ten long detained the coffins of the rich from their last reposito- 

 ry ; many are seen in houses and gardens under temporary roofs, to 

 preserve them in £he mean time from the weather: but necessity 

 forces the poor to overcome many of their scruples in this respect 5. 

 and to deposit at once, and with little ceremony, the remains of their 

 relations in their final abode. 



The following is a description of a Chinese funeral procession, ob- 

 served by sir George Staunton, passing out at one of the gates of 

 Peking : " The procession was preceded by several performers on 

 solemn music ; then followed a variety of insignia, some of silken 

 colours, and painted boards with devices and characters, displaying 

 the rank and office of him who was no more. Immediately before 

 the corpse the male relations walked, each supported by friends, oc- 

 cupied in preventing them from giving way to the excesses and ex- 

 travagance of grief, to which the appearance of their countenance 

 implied that they were prone. Over the mourners were canned um- 

 brellas with deep curtains hanging from the edges. Several persons 

 were employed to burn circular pieces of paper, covered chiefly with 

 tin foil, as they passed by hurrying grounds and temples. These pieces, 

 in the popular opinion, like the coin to Charon for being conveyed to 

 the Elysian fields, are understood to be convertible, in the next stage 

 of existence, into the means of providing the necessaries of life.'* 



The public burying grounds are extremely extensive, owing to the 

 respect paid to the dead by the Chinese, which prevents them from 

 opening a new grave upon any spot where the traces of a former one 

 remai;) upon the surface. 



Every Chinese keeps in his house a table, upon which are written 

 the names of his father, grandfather, and great grandfather ; before 

 which they frequently burn incense, and prostrate themselves : and 

 when the father of a family dies, the name of the great grandfather is 

 taken away, and that of the deceased is add: J 



