comes silently and slowly along with a quaint dancing gait; he raises his keen-edged blade on high, and with one sweep of the weapon severs the head from the trunk. The head is set up on a pole as a warning to those present; the feet and hands of the victim are hacked off; the fetters collected, and the crowd disperses silently, with the ominous croaking of many birds of prey impressing the meaning of the lesson upon their mournful hearts. CHAPTER XII. CEREMONIES FOR THE DYING AND THE DEAD. Death is essentially awe-inspiring and mysterious, and in the case of a people whose lives, from the cradle upwards, are lived in an atmosphere of superstition, it is only to be expected that the ceremonies for the dead should be duly and respectfully performed. [Illustration: A ROYAL FUNERAL PROCESSION. _Page 245._] When a person is at the point of death, those by the bedside endeavour to fix the thoughts of the dying one upon the "Great Teacher," whose words are their hope and guide at such a time. Loudly and rapidly, at least eight or ten times a minute, the watchers exclaim, "Pra Arahang, Pra Arahang," this being one of the many names of the last Buddha. With the mind dwelling upon the precepts of the ancient sage, the sick one passes from this world of men, and the body lies stiff in death. Still the cry goes forth, louder and more rapidly than before, "Pra Arahang, Pra Arahang," so that the departed soul may not forget the teacher as it takes its flight into another world. The cry ceases not until the spirit has passed so far away that all hope of it hearing the voices of earthly relatives must be abandoned. Then loud wailing, the natural world-wide expression of uncontrollable grief, is heard all over the house. Even the visitors, the domestics, the slaves and others who might not be supposed to be so deeply affected by the loss of the one who has passed away, join in the mournful chorus, as a fitting way of showing their respect for the dead. If the person is of high rank the body is bathed with great ceremony. The king himself comes to the bedside to pour water over the corpse. Other princes follow his example, after whom come the nobles present, according to their rank. The corpse is dressed in pantaloons and a tight-fitting jacket, wrapped in a winding-sheet and placed in a sitting posture in a copper urn. A tube is placed in the mouth, and a mixture of quicksilver and honey poured into the body. The copper urn, which has a grating at the bottom, is next placed inside a golden urn richly studded with precious stones. At the bottom of this urn there is a stop-cock through which the products of decomposition are drained away day by day, in the interval that elapses between the death and the cremation of the body. As the urn is placed on a high pedestal a loud blast is blown upon the trumpets, the ancient conch shell is sounded, the wailing of relatives and friends bursts out afresh, and the band plays sorrowfully a weird funeral dirge.