I wonder no more at the changes which I observed. Nor do I wonder at the improved appearance of the couple when, after a few weeks of rational life in usual pursuits, something like the health and cheerfulness of old returned! Yet I was informed that very many couples never recover from the Honey-moon (as my informant had it, Matrimonial Discovery), but from bad grew worse, soured and sickened entirely, could not, at length, endure each other, separated by consent, or sought the Divorce Court! The thing, therefore, seems characteristic of the coarse humour of the Barbarians, who appear to find a comedy in an absurd, irrational trial of respect and affection, dangerously near the tragic at best, and often absolutely so! _Absurd and irrational after marriage_--one can conjecture its use before! However, it is quite of a piece with the general disorder, and want of knowledge and practice of sound principles. When a child is born, the event is duly announced in the public _Gazette_, and relatives send _compliments_. When the infant is about eight days old, it is taken to a Temple to be baptised and _christened_. It is a singular _rite_, and one of the most astonishing in the Superstition. The Bonze who officiates before the Idol, takes the little thing upon his arm and _sprinkles_ some water upon its face. At the moment he does this, he makes a curious Invocation to all the _three-gods-in-one_ of the Worship, and pronounces aloud the _Christian_ name of the babe, by which it shall ever after be known. This is called _Christening_, that is, making a Christian of the infant. The ceremony, it is believed, exorcises the Evil One, and makes it very difficult for him to get hold of the baptised (no matter how diabolically he may act) in after life--the water, duly made _holy_ by the Priest, is a barrier over which Satan, with all his wiles, shall find it well-nigh impossible ever to get--some Bonzes say it is absolutely impossible! Women, as soon as strong enough to attend the Temples, are _churched_ (we have no term of the kind), a _rite_ much like an ordinary _thanks offering_, for the happy deliverance and new birth. The Bonze makes _Invocations_, and refers to the various superstitions and barbarous pretensions of the Worship, devotion to which is inculcated under fearful penalties. However, on all occasions in the Temples, these dreadful intimations of Hell and the Devil are most frequent! When a death occurs, it is also announced in the public _Gazette_, with honours and titles; and, if a High-Caste, with a long notice of the chief events of his life, and loud praises of his valour, as where he led, in his youth, a hand of fierce Barbarians like himself to the plunder and burning of some distant tribe! His virtues are also proclaimed--to the astonishment of all who _knew_ him!