The bride, in Upper Syria, is sometimes carried across the threshold of the bridegroom’s house by friends of the bridegroom.[100] She, of course, is veiled. When the bride reaches the outer gate of her husband’s residence, in Egypt, the bridegroom meets her, enveloped as she is in her cashmere shawl, clasps her in his arms, and carries her across the threshold, and up to the doorway of the female apartments.[101] In portions of Abyssinia, the bridegroom carries his bride from her home to his, bearing her across the threshold as he enters his house.[102] So, also, it is among the more primitive tribes in West Africa. The bride is carried over the threshold in a rude chair, or on the shoulders of her friends, into her new home.[103] There are traces of a similar custom in the marriage ceremonies of ancient Assyria.[104] Again, it is said to be found among the Khonds of Orissa,[105] the Tatars,[106] and the Eskimos.[107] In ancient Greece[108] and in ancient Rome[109] the lifting of the bride over the threshold of her new home was an important part of the marriage ceremony. Classic writers had their explanations of this custom, as certain modern anthropologists have theirs, but the origin of the ceremony was earlier than they imagined. In unchanging China the use of fire on the threshold altar, in connection with the marriage ceremony, is continued to the present day. The bride is borne in a sedan-chair to the house of the bridegroom, accompanied by a procession of friends and musicians. “On arriving at the portal of the house, the bridegroom taps the door of the sedan-chair with his fan, and in response, the instructress of matrimony, who prompts every act of the bride, opens the door and hands out the still enshrouded young lady, who is carried bodily over a pan of lighted charcoal, or a red-hot coulter laid on the threshold, while at the same moment a servant offers for her acceptance some rice and preserved prunes.”[110] Again, it is burning straw that is thrown upon the door-sill, and is half extinguished before the Chinese bride is led to step across it. The instructress says at this point: “Now, fair young bride, the smoke bestride; This year have joy, next year a boy.”[111]