A day or two after the funeral, and on special feast-days, the near relatives carry food to the grave and offer the food to the spirit by placing it in bowls before the grave. They also again burn paper money or incense. While the fire burns, and the food remains to be received by the spirit, a woman, usually the nearest relative, kneels by the side of the grave and begins a long-drawn-out season of lamenting and wailing for the sorrow that has come upon her on account of the death of the one by whose grave she is kneeling. She soon almost prostrates herself. During this season of weeping, she enumerates over and over, all the virtues and good qualities of the departed one, and begs him to come back to her. She usually continues in this frenzy until some one who has accompanied her, pulls her up, bidding her cease the wailing. The bowls of food previously offered to the spirit are now given to the children or carried home for others to eat. By this manner of worship the woman is supposed to show great honor and reverence to the deceased, whether he was her father, brother, husband, or son. Well do I remember the strange feelings that came over me the first few times I witnessed from my window such a scene as I have just described. I felt such a longing to go to the weeping woman, put my arms around her, and comfort her sad heart. But to my utter astonishment, within two or three minutes after all her touching lamentations she was up laughing, talking, and having a jovial time with those about her! Whence came those agonizing groans, and whither had they flown? Had "He who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities" comforted her heart? Had the God of heaven, who is a present help in every time of trouble, stretched forth his loving hand to dry her tears of sorrow? Ah, no; sadly enough, no. Believe me, reader, when I say that these superstitious women worshiping the spirits of departed ones have a form of sorrow and make a great pretense of distress, but that, in reality, it is only a custom or habit which has been copied from their grandmothers for generations back. This may seem hard to believe, but one thing which convinced me the quickest was that they all have precisely the same tune or swing to their wailing. After hearing it once or twice, you always recognize it afterwards, wherever you are, whether you see the person or not. It is like a recitation or song committed to memory. There may be no signs whatsoever of sorrow until after the woman has taken her place beside the grave, when she immediately begins in tones that could probably be heard, on a quiet day, a quarter of a mile away, and continues wailing in the same pitch until some one bids her cease, when her outward appearance of sorrow ceases as abruptly as it began. I do not mean to say that never is there any real sorrow mingled with the outward form. There may be, but it is the outward form which constitutes the worship and which every woman