Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/217

Rh shaven heads and curved gauze caps, and the (lags and branches of trees borne in the procession. The use of large bouquets of flowers is common to both, and both religions have funeral services of great length and intricacy.

Vast sums of money are often lavished on funerals, more especially by the Imperial Family. When the Empress Dowager died, in 1897, no less than 700,000 yen were appropriated from the national treasury. Never, perhaps, was funeral pomp more elaborate than on this occasion, which, from first to last, occupied several weeks,—for the actual interment was only the last scene in an extraordinarily complicated set of observances. The procession was two miles in length, the final ceremony lasted over twenty-two hours, during all which time Imperial princes stood or walked almost barefoot in the snow without eating a morsel of food. An ox-wagon, with wheels purposely built so as to creak mournfully, bore the magnificent coffin in which the body lay preserved in vermilion. Three oxen drew it harnessed in single file,—the leader jet-black, the next dun colour with black flecks, the third spotted white and black, with a white star on the forehead and four white stockings, all this in accordance with ancient use. The actual grave-diggers were habited as birds with black wings, because for these, being devoid of reason, there could be no sacrilege in perching upon an Empress's tomb. All sound of music was hushed throughout the land for the space of a month, the schools were closed for a week, and thousands of criminals liberated. The Court itself suspended all festivities for a year. (See also Article on Things Japanese/Archæology.)

 Gardens. A garden without flowers may sound like a contradiction in terms. But it is a fact that many Japanese gardens are of that kind, the object which the Japanese landscapegardener sets before him being to produce something park-like, to suggest some famous natural scene, in which flowers may or