Now about the necessary preparations for the wedding. Nothing is to be more cared for than a good, faithful goldsmith, who is to make ornaments of various shapes and sizes. Three days before the marriage, both the bride and the bridegroom are anointed and bathed in their respective homes, by a dozen married women. The widows are entirely excluded from this and other ceremonies pertaining to the wedding. I have before observed, that the women cannot associate with men, and the question would naturally suggest itself, Do the married women anoint and bathe both bride and bridegroom? I will here be more distinct in portraying the scenes, for they are all new and different from those of my Christian friends. The women are for the most part elderly persons, and composed of sisters, aunts, and the like. This exception is made on an occasion like this. The bride and bridegroom are requested to keep a _jathee_, scissors, with them until the marriage ceremony is over. The relatives and other friends send valuable gifts, and entertain them in their houses. This mode of entertainment is called “the bachelor and maiden feasts.” The evening previous to the wedding is celebrated the feast of “joy cakes.” These cakes are made of cocoa-nuts, sugar, and rice-powder, and are cooked with much ceremony. When the raw rice is washed, they sound the sacred shells, trumpets, flutes, cymbals, &c. As the couple will be joined in a fixed moment in the evening, the friends are very careful to reach the bride’s house before that time. When the bridegroom starts he dresses in red silken cloth, wears a hat made of cord and other glittering, fanciful material; then his mother, or in her absence, aunt, comes near him, and inquires, “Child,--where are you going?” “To bring you a female servant, mother,” he replies. If he be the son of a rich man, hundreds of persons go with him. The bands, both native and English, play before him all the way. Some young boys, a hundred or more, dress in uniform; walk with colored flags in their hands; the hired dancing-girls dance on the platform, carried by men on their shoulders. Various fancy things, such as hills, houses, halls, and churches, made of bamboo sticks, beautifully covered with paint and gilded paper, are displayed,--fireworks of various sorts are burned,--streets leading to the bride’s house are splendidly illuminated. When the bridegroom reaches his place of destination, he is received in an outer hall, accommodating hundreds. A party of twelve young men come and demand some money, which they get from every man who comes to marry in their place. This they dispose of at the public worship. Some little boys come, also, in the name of the “throwing stone party,” for some money, which they spend for a feast or other amusements. The priests of the opposite parties enter into a discussion of various topics, embracing mental philosophy, astronomy, poetry, scriptures, &c., while the schoolboys do the same, questioning