Chap. VIII. RETURN FROM THE FUNERAL. 



157 



surface of the ground, to be covered with thatch 

 or brickwork at a future opportunity. 



The procession, or rather what remained of it, 

 for it was now very small, returned to the temple. 

 As we passed the small villages and cottages on 

 our way the inmates crowded the doors, not to 

 look at the procession, for such things were not 

 unfrequent, but to express their wonder that a 

 foreigner should have taken a part in it. When 

 we arrived at the temple I looked in to see what 

 was going on in the house from which the body 

 had been taken, and in which such a strange scene 

 had been acted the night before. It had been 

 swept out, the tables had been put back into their 

 proper places, two priests were quietly smoking 

 their pipes in the verandah, the cook was preparing 

 the forenoon meal in the back part of the house, 

 and, except that that meal seemed more sumptuous 

 than usual, there was nothing to indicate that 

 a short time previous it had been the house of 

 death. Such is life and death in China — not very 

 unlike in some particulars what it is in other parts 

 of the world. 



In this part of the Ohekiang province, and also 

 amongst the Fung-hwa mountains to the westward 

 of Ningpo, there are large quantities of a blue 

 dye produced, which is in fact the indigo of this 

 part of the country. Those who have read my 

 ' Wanderings in China,' published in 184G, may 

 remember the account given there of a valuable 

 kind of indigo, made from a species of woad {Isatis 



