“Many of us,” writes an officer of the “Mississippi,” “entered houses very frequently, and sat down with the people to smoke or drink tea. One day the sound of a guitar attracted me, and I found an olive girl, of some fifteen or sixteen years, who, not perceiving my presence, continued her play. It was a strange tune, wild and melancholy, and often abruptly interrupted by harsh accords. After a while some women that had assembled around us made the girl aware of my presence; she threw down her instrument and began to cry, and I could not induce her to play again. The guitar was made of wood, with the exception of the upper lid. Of the three strings, two were in the octave, the middle one giving the fifth. The strings were not touched by the fingers, but with a flat piece of horn, held between the thumb and third finger of the right hand, in shape not unlike the one painters use to clean their palettes and mix their colors. “On another occasion I heard a young man playing a flute. This instrument was of the most primitive description, consisting only of a piece of hollow bamboo, bored with seven finger-holes, and the hole for the mouth. The tunes were very strange, and appeared to me more like a mass of confused sounds, than a regular harmony.[128] “At the beginning of the new moon, I saw in several houses a sort of domestic worship. A number of women had assembled before the shrine of the household god, and, divided in two parties, were singing hymns, one party alternately answering the other. Their song was accompanied by strokes upon a little bell or gong, with a small wooden hammer; and, as the bells were of different tones, the effect was by no means unpleasant.” “There are a number of temples near Shimoda,” writes an officer of the “Susquehanna,” “and attached to each is a graveyard. At one of these, situated near a village, there is a place set apart for Americans. Here Dr. Hamilton was buried, being laid by the side of two others who had died on the second visit of the ships. Each grave has its appropriate stone, as with us, and by many of them are evergreens set in vases, or joints of bamboo, containing water. Cups of fresh water are also set by the graves, and to these, birds of dazzling plumage and delightful song come and drink. The graves of the Americans were not forgotten.”