We will now consider some holes of a different description, that are not actual perforations. A custom very general in Roman Catholic countries must have struck travellers: it is that of placing cups, basins, or other concave vessels on graves. The purpose is that they may be filled with holy water--or if not with that, then with the dew of heaven. The friends, kindred, or charitable as they pass dip a little brush in the basin and sprinkle the grave with the water. This is a symbolic act, nothing more. It means that the visitor to the grave wishes well to the dead, and offers a prayer for the refreshment of the departed soul. That soul may be in purgatory, and he who sprinkles the grave knows that no drops of water thrown on the mound can slake the fire that tortures the soul, but he acts as though he thought that the soul still tenanted the body, and could be refreshed by the water thrown on his grave. I do not believe this usage to have received any formal sanction; it is a survival of a much earlier usage that has been given an altered signification. It is not a rational proceeding, but is not one particle more irrational than our putting wreaths and crosses of flowers on the graves of those we have loved. I remember a daughter planting ferns of many sorts round her mother’s tomb, “because mother was so very fond of ferns.” But those who thus act, when they consider, know well enough that what lies underground is the decaying husk, and that the soul, the true being, is elsewhere. Nevertheless, the mind, by force of custom and natural tendency, persists in associating soul with body after death, and the dead lady was given her ferns because they continued to give her pleasure, whilst lying in her grave, precisely as the Tartar chief is given his horse and his wives slain and laid about him in his cairn. The original signification of the basin or cup on the tomb was that of a vessel to contain the drink supplied to the dead. The dead man continued to eat and drink in his cairn or dolmen, and the relatives supplied him with what he required.