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306 between the lotus and Buddhism is very close. Buddha is figured standing on a lotus, gold and silver paper lotuses are carried at funerals, tombstones are often set on an inverted lotus-flower of stone as their base, lotus-beds often surround shrines built on islets. Owing to this association with the idea of death the lotus is a flower apart, not sharing in the popularity of the cherry-blossom, the iris, and the chrysanthemum. But this sentimental objection does not exclude its pips and roots from being used as a common article of diet.

Stately and yet tender is the beauty of the lotus-blossom early on a summer's morning—for its petals close before the overpowering heat of the August noonday—while the great bluish-green leaves, studded with water-drops, continue to reflect the sky.

 Luchu. Luchu pronounced Dūchū by the natives and Ryūkyū by the Japanese—is, in its widest acceptation, the general name of several groups of islands which stretch nearly the whole way between the Southernmost outlying islets of the Japanese archipelago and the North-Eastern extremity of Formosa. But it is usually restricted in practice to the central group, the chief members of which are Amami-Ōshima and Okinawa. This group is of coral formation, and lies between 127° and 130° long, east of Greenwich, and between 26° and 28° 30' of North lat. To this position it owes a mild climate, marred only by the extreme violence of occasional typhoons during the summer months. The soil is so fertile as to produce two crops of rice yearly.

In race and language the Luchuans are closely allied to the Japanese, but for many centuries the two peoples seem not to have communicated with each other. The veil lifts in A.D. 1187 with the accession of King Shunten, said to have been a son of Tametomo, the famous Japanese archer. It is recorded that the Luchuans first sent an ambassador with presents to the Shōgun of Japan in the year 1451, that they discontinued such presents or tribute at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and were chastised for this neglect by the then Prince of Satsuma.