128 
FROM HONG-KONG TO YOKOHAMA. 
On the day of my first stepping ashore at Zebu, my attention was attracted by the 
loud strains of a brass band playing a lively march. To my surprise it headed a funeral, 
proceeding at a rapid, almost a running pace. Behind the musicians came a car covered by a 
canopy, under which appeared the body of a young girl dressed in white, her hair adorned 
with flowers. Who could fail to remember Friar Lawrence’s words ?— 
“ Then, as the manner of our country is, 
In thy best robes, uncovered, on the bier, 
Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault 
Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.” 
A crowd of mourners, some on foot, some in carriages, tried to keep up with the band 
heading this strange procession. Following the cortege to the church, another odd sight 
awaited me at the church door. Placed in the open air, and stretched on a wooden bier, 
lay the body apparently of a woman, dressed in the brown hood and gown of a friar, a large 
wooden crucifix stuck between her poor shrivelled hands. The corpse was so placed as to 
face the high altar, and the crowd which had accompanied the funeral were gathered around, 
paying little or no attention to what was no doubt to them a familiar sight. Although 
there was a certain want of dignity and solemnity in the surroundings of the funeral, yet 
the music, the white robe, and the flowers seemed to me more in keeping with the cheerful, 
comforting creed of the Christian, than the gloomy, and, as a rule, ugly trappings of a 
funeral in Northern Europe. In the genial, warm sunny South, where Nature is the friend 
of man, where a luxuriant vegetation and a prolific fauna render the spectacle of rapid 
growth and decay a sight familiar to the least observant eye, death ceases to wield the 
abject terrors with which the mind of Northern races, ever struggling against poverty, cold, 
and hunger, and prone to melancholy, has invested it. It presents itself more in the light 
of a natural event, neither more nor less extraordinary than the countless changes which 
constitute the whole course of existence—a 
transition from this beautiful earth to a still 
more beautiful heaven. 
The streets of Zebu, at the time of our 
visit gaily decorated with flags in honour of 
the accession of King Alfonso, have that 
pleasant suburban aspect which lends an 
additional charm to the towns of the 
Philippines. Every corner not usurped by 
road or dwelling is filled up with tree, shrub, 
or flower; the palm-tree protruding its 
drowsily nodding . branches over the wall of 
CALLE DE LA PKINCESA, ZEBU, 
the courtyard, or the light graceful foliage of the bamboo peeping over the roofs, as if the 
country were contesting every inch of ground and every yard of sky with the town. The 
enjoyment of a ramble in the sunny streets is further heightened by the unaffected courtesy 
