124 VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AND MALACCA. . 



stood a square painted table and upon it stood an idol on each 

 side ; they were dressed in the same way, only their dress was 

 white with artificial flowers ; they held in their hands white 

 staves, longer than the whole Joss, and at the end of these 

 staves were fastened streamers. Everything- had been removed 

 from the room except a few chairs standing at the sides. In 

 front of the door there was a strip of yellow paper three feet 

 long and scarcely one foot wide ; on it were painted black Chinese 

 letters. Up in the room there hung first some green squares of 

 paper and underneath these were narrow streamers of many 

 different colours ; they were one foot long and two inches wide. 

 There were many streamers of black, green, and pink paper. 

 From the roof of the house hung down longer streamers of red 

 colour without any letters, and also two big lanterns about 1-^ or 

 1| of a yard in diameter ; they were round and made of fine rotan 

 covered with varnished paper bearing large Chinese letters. 



8. — The dead woman was buried with many ceremonies. 

 First of all a table with many viands was spread, among them 

 were a capon, very fat pork and different kind of comfits. There 

 were small and big flags, and all sorts of big lanterns. Two idols, 

 one clothed in green, the other in red silk, were being carried 

 about, on a three-cornered pedestal, also one idol sitting in a litter. 

 They were nearly all of one size. The coffin stood on a bier, 

 which was covered with blue linen. The nearest relatives 

 walked before it ; they were clothed in a sort of thin straw- 

 coloured linen. Behind the coffin followed the women, who were 

 most nearly related to the dead ; they were surrounded by a screen 

 of white linen fastened upon sticks. Behind them came many 

 other women. The ceremony was interrupted by a heavy rain, 

 and some discorder ensued. The coffin was let down into the 

 earth at the side of a mountain, the grave being about one man's 

 height deep. Underneath the coffin they put some money and 

 layer of dead embers mixed with chalk, and from the mountain 

 mould and Q, a kind of mould Q was prepared, which was laid 

 over the coffin, before the other earth was put upon it. 



I botanized here a little and found often the Frisea Nummu- 

 liiria and the Mirifica in blossom. The latter also had fruits. A 

 kind of Epidendris amongst the shrubs had finished blooming, 

 I therefore could not examine the blossoms. The root consisted 

 of long furrowed woody bulbs ; the leaves were oblong, lancet- 



