The real native costume is both pretty and becoming. It consists usually of a single robe reaching from the shoulders to the ankles, and tied round the waist with a heavy girdle. Tight-fitting undergarments, in foreign style, are sometimes worn now, but they form no part of the original native costume. A black outer garment, {83} reaching only to the knees, is placed over the ordinary robe on state occasions. Formerly the Japanese did not wear hats, and even now half of the men one meets on the street are bareheaded. The women wear neither hats nor bonnets. It is not considered improper to go barefooted in Japan, but generally the better classes are shod when they go out of doors. If anything resembling a stocking is worn, it is what they call _tabi_, a sort of foot-glove, made of either white or black cloth, with a separate inclosure for the great toe. A block of wood called _geta_ corresponds to our shoes. It has two cords attached to the same place in front, and then dividing, one being fastened on each side at the back. These cords slip in between the great toe and the others, and, passing over the foot, secure the geta. Japanese bathing customs are peculiar. Perhaps there are no other people on earth that bathe as often as they. It is customary for every one, even the coolies, to bathe well the whole body every day. The baths are taken very hot--about 110°F. Each private house has a large bath-tub, which in many instances is capacious enough to accommodate the whole family at once. Besides these private baths each city and town has its public ones, where a good hot bath, in a place large enough for you to swim round, can be had for one cent. Men, women, and children go into {84} them at the same time, indiscriminately. Japan is a land of hot springs, so that almost every district has its natural hot baths. Most of them have medicinal value, and the people flock to them by thousands. The funeral customs are very different from ours. It is a strange feature of the native character that when one is deeply moved he is very likely to cover up his emotion with a laugh. If a man announces to you the death of his child, he will probably laugh as he does so. At funerals there is not that solemn silence which we expect, but frequently loud talking and laughter. The coffin is a square, upright box with considerable ornamentation. The corpse is placed in it in a sitting posture. In Japan are found the hired mourners of whom we read in the Bible. Anciently they were employed to follow the corpse, mourning in a loud voice; but that has become obsolete, and now they simply follow in the procession, wearing the white garments. The usual manner of disposing of dead bodies is by interment, but cremation is rapidly growing in favor. The government will not permit a body to be buried until it has been dead twenty-four hours.