Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/43

 JAPAN. 19 oonntiy, and has its home on the eastern slopes of Changbaishan. The mountains of Whi were invested with leopards (Bao); while the sea^ on its east, produced the beautiful Ba/n, or vary-coloured fish. When a man died his house was forsaken, left to rot to pieces, and a new one built by the survivors. Wojoo was east of Gaogowli, stretching to the shores of the sea of Japan. One peculiar custom is recorded of this people. The head of a family provided a great tree, a hundred feet long, which was burnt and scooped out hollow, till only sufficient wood was left at the imbumt end to securely seal it When one of the family died, the body was buried elsewhere till the flesh was consumed away, and then the bones were taken up and put into this tube. All the members of the family were re-interred in this peculiar tomb. There is a practice much like this in use to the present day among the Sibo Manchus, north of Mukden. East of the Three Hans, in the midst of the sea, was the kingdom of Wo (Japan). There were over thirty kings and kingdoms ; the most powerful of which was in Yematai This land produced white pearls and dark blue jade. There were no oxen, horses, sheep, or birds. Their arrow barbs were of bone.* The men coloured their faces black, and covered their bodies with flour. The extent and depth of the colour showed the rank to which the man belonged, — ^the first advance beyond Carlyle's clotheless king ! Women left their hair unbound to flow behind, and painted their bodies with a red dye. They ate food with the fingers,")" and wore no shoes. They were extremely fond of strong spirits. They were long Uvers ; Uving often beyond a hundred years. They assumed a half sitting posture to show respect. The women were more numerous than the men, those who could support them having four or five wives.} They sent fThis would imply that the Chinese in the time of Han, and most likely much earlier, used hwairdsu or chop-sticks, and were probably the only people then on the face of the earth who did not eat with the fingers.
 * Human or fish?
 * ^By the same, which is a blundering test, China has always had more women

than men.