terror.

But more terrible than any of these--is wickedness; and very wicked
customs are observed in Japan. It is very wicked for a man to kill
himself, yet in Japan it is the custom for all courtiers who have
offended the emperor, to cut open their own bodies with a sword. The
little boys of five years old, begin to learn the dreadful art. They do
not really cut themselves, but they are shown _how_ to do it, that when
they are men, they may be able to kill themselves in an elegant manner.
How dreadful! Every great man has a white dress, which he never wears,
but keeps by him, that he may put it on when he is going to kill himself:
and he carries it about with him wherever he goes, for he cannot tell how
suddenly he may want it. When a courtier receives a letter sentencing him
to die, he invites his friends to a feast; and at the end of it, his
sentence is read aloud by the emperor's officer; then he takes his sword,
and makes a great gash across his own body; at the same moment, a servant
who stands behind him, cuts off his head.

This way of dying is thought very fine, and as a reward, the emperor
allows the son of the dead man to occupy his father's place in the court.
But _what_ a place to have, when at last there may be such a fearful
scene! Missionaries cannot come into Japan to teach the people a better
way of dying, and to tell them of a happy place after death.

AUSTRALIA.

This is the largest island in the world. It is as large as Europe (which
is not an _island_, but a _continent_). But how different is Australia
from Europe! Instead of containing, as Europe does, a number of grand
kingdoms, it has not one single king. Instead of being filled with
people, the greater part of Australia is a desert, or a forest, where a
few half naked savages are wandering.

A hundred years ago, there was not a town in the whole island; but now
there are a few large towns near the sea-coast, but only a very few. It
is the English who built these large towns, and who live in them.

Australia is not so fine a land as Europe, because it has not so many
fine rivers; and it is fine _rivers_ that make a fine _land_. Most of the
rivers in Australia do not deserve the name of rivers; they are more like
a number of water-holes, and are often dried up in the summer; but there
is one very fine, broad, long, deep river, called the Murray. It flows
for twelve hundred miles. Were there several such rivers us the Murray,
then Au