On the eve of the funeral a wake is kept. The body must be kept for at least twenty-four hours after death. In great families where elaborate preparations must be made for the funeral, it is often kept for several days; but in most other houses the funeral takes place as soon as possible. In the summer heat it is naturally important that the body should be buried with the least delay. When more than one night intervene between the death and the funeral, the wake is sometimes held every night. Friends and relatives are invited, and they burn incense before the coffin and offer prayers; and in the interval the conversation turns upon the deceased and every effort is made to console the bereaved family. A priest is called in from the family temple, and he recites three or four prayers in the course of the night. In a separate room a slight repast is offered to the persons gathered in the house, and though _sake_ is drunk, it is taken very quietly. [Illustration: COFFINS AND AN URN.] The coffin is among the better classes a double box of wood, oblong in shape to allow the body to lie in it. Sometimes the box is single and almost square, the body being made to sit in it, and sometimes an earthen jar is used; and among the poorest it is no more than a barrel with bamboo hoops. The coffin is wrapped in white cloth. The bier may be only a rest with poles extending at both ends; but in most cases, especially if the coffin is oblong, it has a curved roof with a pair of gilt lotus flowers in front and behind. The square coffin has usually a baldachin over it; formerly it used to be carried in a palanquin. The pall differs in colour according to the sex and age of the deceased. It is made of two square wadded covers like quilts; and the upper or outer cover is light-blue for a man and the lower one is white if he has not yet reached his forty-first year and red if he is past that age, while the outer cover is white for a woman, and the inner red or pink according as she has or has not passed her thirty-second year. The lower cover differs in colour according as the deceased is under or over the age which is considered most critical for one of the deceased’s sex. The funeral usually takes place in the afternoon; but in summer the _cortège_ leaves the house at an early hour of the morning. In the country the mourners gather before the funeral and take a meal; but in Tokyo it is usually the chief mourner who has a meal before starting. At such a meal a second helping is never taken as it may presage another death in the family. One bowl of rice on which clear bean-curd soup is poured, is eaten with a single chopstick. At other times, therefore, it is considered unlucky to take only one helping of rice. [Illustration: A BUDDHIST FUNERAL PROCESSION.]