46'4 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, them, and found that he was, by putting his arms in the position of draw- 
ing the bow, and by pointing to the sword and striking his arm forward ; 
May, but he implied that that weapon belonged to the mandarins only. A 
great many pieces of paper were suspended on each side of the picture, 
some of them marked with Chinese characters, and were, no doubt, in- 
vocations to the deities for some temporary benefits, as all the sects are 
in the habit of writing inscriptions of this kind, and depositing them in 
the jos houses, or placing them upon stones, of which there are several 
in Loo Choo under the name of Karoo. Under a veranda which sur- 
rounded the temple there were several wooden forms strewed with 
flowers, and upon the middle form a stool was suspended by thongs in 
a handsome japanned stand. 
A building in front of this jos house, mentioned by Captain Hall, 
has been rebuilt, but was not quite finished at the time of our visit : 
though so near to the temple the panels were scrawled over with groups 
of figures, some of which were very inappropriate to such a situation. 
After we had partaken of tea in the dwelling-house, we determined 
upon a w'alk in the interior, much to the discomfiture of the old 
gentleman, who used every means he could think of to induce us to 
desist, and produced pipes, sweet cakes, tcha, and masa chorassa, pre- 
serves with which they tempted us whenever they feared our walk would 
be directed inland. Finding he could not detain us, he determined to 
be our companion, and endeavoured to confine us to the beach by 
praising the freshness of the breeze, saying how hot we should find it 
inland, and what bad paths there were in that direction, every word of 
which proved to be false, as we found the roads very good, and by gaining 
elevated situations we enjoyed more of the breeze. 
We passed some tombs excavated in the cliffs, and in one that was 
broken down we discovered a corpse lying upon its back half decayed 
and covered over with a mat ; a jar of tea and some cups were placed by 
it, that the spirit might drink ; but there was nothing to eat, and our 
guide informed us that it was customary to place tea only by the side 
of the bodies, and that food was never left there. He turned us away 
from this shocking spectacle as much disgusted as ourselves, and seemed 
sorry that we had hit upon it. This discovery seems to strengthen 
