FUNERAL OF THE KING OF COCHIN CHINA. 338 
that the dead could still employ all the articles of which they 
have made use during life. When the body was deposited in 
the coffin, it was carried to a richly ornamented house, 
made expressly for the purpose, and sundry buffaloes, swine, 
poultry and other animals were immolated, and meals were 
set out upon a table made on purpose near the coffin. The 
new king, son of the defunct, clothed in a mourning dress, came 
each day to prostrate himself before the body of bis father, 
and to offer prayers to him. Every day also, wax candles 
were lighted, or incense burned. Betel or areca nut, tobac¬ 
co, &c., were prepared, and were all placed near the coffin. 
It was above all on the sacred days, declared such by the sor¬ 
cerers of the kingdom, amongst others the 1st and the 15th of 
each month, that the sacrifices were made with the greatest 
splendour. The body remained exposed thus in its lighted 
chamber, until the21st of the 9th moon 1848 (21st June,) a day 
indicated by the soothsayers and the astrologers as propitious 
to commence the funeral rites. Here nothing in regard to the 
sepulture of the dead is done by chance ; it is necessary that 
the place of interment, the day, the hour in which a deceased 
person ought to be interred, should be indicated by the sor¬ 
cerers and the astrologers, who cbuse the place by means 
of a compass, and read in the stars the propitious or 
unpropitious day. If all the formalities have not been ful¬ 
filled, and if what has been prescribed by the sorcerers 
has not been followed in every thing, they predict to 
the children or the parents of the deceased, that they will 
have no more good fortune, but that all kinds of evils will 
unceasingly pursue them. It often happens that a deceased 
person is disinterred several times in order to inter him in 
another spot when a family sorcerer, to gain a little, throws 
them into a fright by announcing misfortunes, because their 
dead parent has not been interred in a proper spot. It is not 
the people only who conform to all these absurdities, but the 
great also, the king himself and the mandarins. Many how« 
ever do not believe in them, and when it is represented to 
them how much all that they thus do is contrary to the most 
simple good sense, they say that is true, but it is a crime 
not to do what the king does, and what our ancestors 
did. As for the sorcerers and the soothsayers, I have caused 
many of them to be queslioned confidentially, to know if they 
believe in all that they profess, and they have always frankly 
replied to the Christians who interrogated them, that they did 
not believe the least in the world, but when they have been 
pressed to quit their disreputable profession they have a 
strong argument, which is—if we abandon our occupation we 
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