It is a torchlight procession, the like of which I have never seen before. Pedestrians, sedan-chairs, men on horseback, are coming forward in an endless string. And what a pageant this is! What effective grouping! The minutest detail has been carried out with artistic taste. The smallest traits are wonderfully harmonized, to enhance the general effect. The procession is headed by children, dressed in white from top to toe, wearing bell-shaped head-gear. Then follow bearers of torchlights and banners, servants carrying inscriptions attached to poles, others dangling lanterns, and behind these another group burning straw plaits. The next section of the procession consists of riders, of whom eight are entirely covered by white cloaks. You would imagine they were phantoms, if it were not that they are weeping bitterly. These are the paid mourners, like the moaning women of ancient Rome; for it is a native funeral. A member of the Min family is being taken to his last resting-place. He is a descendant of a famous clan, a relative of the late Empress of Korea, so regal pomp is awarded him. And the funeral procession is really grand, although all dresses worn therein are of unbleached linen. The trimmings are for the most part of paper, but in such striking combinations, and designed and finished so perfectly, that we disregard the details and only admire the general effect. The group of moaning women is followed by monsters, dressed as guys, such as gruesome fables are peopled with. One wears a red, another a yellow, mask; this a green, and that a blue one. The appearance of all is awe-inspiring, their heads being adorned with horns, cockscombs, and crowns. Now more and more new groups follow, approaching in a stately way, and disappearing slowly in the darkness of the night. How long the procession lasted I could not ascertain, but some thousand persons must have marched by ere the two gilt catafalques appeared on the scene. Both were alike, resembling monumental pagodas, gabled in many places, designed with the quaint originality of this people, and ornamented with all the fullness of their fancy. The two coffins, prescribed by ancient traditions, rest on pedestals in the shadow of high baldachinos. Behind the coffin walks a person wrapped in sackcloth, suggestive of the cloth worn over their uniforms by members of the society of the Misericordia in Italy. The catafalques and coffins are carried on their shoulders by thirty-two mourners, proceeding slowly and rhythmically.