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top of the head. The wives of the better classes go to market in the same way as the poorer women, from whom they are distinguished by a piece of cloth a foot long carried in the hand.
Formerly, when a Loochooan died, he was provisionally buried for three years, until his corpse decomposed so far as to leave only the bones. These were taken out of the coffin, washed clean in a kind of saké called awamori, and being placed in a small vase, were deposited in the tomb. The tombs are small holes excavated in hill sides, just large enough to admit the vase, and the entrances are closed with wooden doors or slabs of stone. It seems, however, that at the present time the ordinary Japanese method of burying the corpse at once is followed, the ceremony being conducted by Buddhist priests.
A man’s tomb is decorated with a piece of white cloth and a hat, and a pole is stuck in the ground close by on which are hung his straw sandals and wooden clogs. On a woman’s grave they place a palm leaf fan, fresh leaves of the same and a piece of white cloth.
There were formerly three classes of persons who shaved their heads and wore the skull cap called hempô, namely, the physicians, the king’s servants and his gardeners, but at the present time the Buddhist priests alone practise this custom. There are only two sects of Buddhists, the Shingon shiu and Rinzai shiu, both of which also exist in Japan. The Chinese Government does not allow Loochoöans to study theology within its dominions, and they are therefore compelled to go through the usual course at Kagoshima. Up to the beginning of the 18th century they were in the habit of making pilgrimages through Japan, but by a subsequent law they are prohibited from extending their peregrinations beyond the boundaries of the province of Satsuma.
The language spoken by the Loochooans, so far as I can judge at present from a vocabulary which Dr. Willis has kindly sent to me from Kagoshima, appears to differ very little from Japanese. One or two of the heads of the embassy now in Yedo, with whom I had an opportunity
