[Illustration: SELLING INDULGENCES BY PUBLIC AUCTION.]
[Illustration: PRAYING A SOUL OUT OF PURGATORY.]
In one of their festivals they make pilgrimages at night to the
graves of their friends, on which they place food and hang lamps. It
is said they believe their ancestors to come from heaven to them on
these occasions, and imagine that they return again in small boats, to
which they attach lanterns, and which they place on the water at
ebb-tide, on the evening of the last day of the festival, and eagerly
watch, out of sight. An old fisherman, however, who was observed
intently watching his frail bark floating out to sea, explained, on
being questioned, that he whose lamp burnt longest caught most fish;
and judging from the old man's solemn manner there was no doubt he had
perfect faith in the truth of his statement.
However gross their superstitions may he, there is no doubt that they
affectionately revere the memory of their dead, and treat them with
quite as much respect as the most civilised nation in Christendom.
In battle the Japanese always carry off the fallen.
At the bombardment of the Simono-seki forts, at the entrance of the
Suwo-Nada, or 'Inland Sea,' in September 1864, Prince Choisiu's loss,
according to one of his own officers, amounted to upwards of 500
killed and wounded; but all had been removed when the brigade of
English, French, and Dutch, under the command of Colonel Suther, C.
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