veil as she
prostrated herself in front of the altar. For more than an hour this chief
mourner, the wife of the deceased, lay on her face, her whole figure
shaking with what seemed the most uncontrollable anguish. This same lady,
however, moved about later among her guests an amiable hostess, with
beaming countenance, the gayest of the gay. But every morning while the
festivities lasted, promptly at eleven o'clock she would prostrate herself
before the coffin and display heartrending grief in the presence of the
unmoved spectators in order to satisfy the demands of "custom."

Custom and precedent have grown to be divinities with the Chinese, and such
a display of feigned emotion is required on certain prescribed occasions.
As one missionary aptly described it "the Chinese are all face and no
heart." Mr. Caldwell told us that one night while passing down a deserted
street in a Chinese village he was startled to hear the most piercing
shrieks issuing from a house nearby. Thinking someone was being murdered,
he rushed through the courtyard only to find that a girl who was to be
married the following day, according to Chinese custom, was displaying the
most desperate anguish at the prospect of leaving her family, even though
she probably was enchanted with the idea.

On the third day of the celebration in the temple at Li-chiang the feasting
ended in a burst of splendor. From one o'clock until far past sundown the
friends and relatives of the departed one were fed. Any person could
receive an invitation by bringing a small present, even if it were only a
bowl of rice or a few hundred cash (ten or fifteen cents).

All during the morning girls and women flocked up the hill with trays of
gifts. There were many Mosos and other tribesmen among them as well as
Chinese. The Moso girls wore their black hair cut short on the sides and
hanging in long narrow plaits down their backs. They wore white leather
capes (at least that was the original shade) and pretty ornaments of silver
and coral at their throats, and as they were young and gay with glowing red
cheeks and laughing eyes they were decidedly attractive. The guests were
seated in groups of six on the stones of the temple courtyard. Small boys
acted as waiters, passing about steaming bowls of vegetables and huge straw
platters heaped high with rice. As soon as each guest had stuffed himself
to satisfaction he relinquished his place to someone else and the food was
passed again