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The boats left the ship with the body, attended by the chaplain, Mr. Jones, Mr. Williams, the interpreter, and a party of marines. The flags of every vessel in the squadron were hoisted at half mast as they pushed off. The body was borne to a very picturesque spot at the foot of a hill, at a short distance from the village of Yoku-hama. The chaplain, Mr. Jones, was robed in his clerical gown, and on landing he was received in the most courteous manner by some of the Japanese authorities, who showed none of their supposed repugnance to the Christian religion and its ministers. Crowds of the people had also gathered, and looked on with great curiosity, but with decorous respect, as the funeral procession moved slowly along to the sound of the muffled drum. The road lay through the village, and its inhabitants came out from their houses and open shops to behold the novel scene.
The place chosen for the burial was near a Japanese place of interment, with stone idols and sculptured headstones, and as the procession came up a Buddhist priest, in robes of richly embroidered silk, was observed already on the ground. Mr. Jones read the service of the Protestant Episcopal church, and while he was officiating the Buddhist priest sat near by on a mat, with an altar before him, on which was a collection of scraps of paper, some rice, a gong, a vessel containing sakee, and burning incense. The service having been read, the body lowered, and the earth thrown in, the party retired from the grave. The Buddhist priest then commenced the peculiar ceremonies of his religion, beating his gong, telling his rosary of glass and wooden beads, muttering his prayers, and keeping alive the burning incense. He was still going through his strange formulary when the Americans moved away, and crowds of Japanese continued to linger in the neighborhood, about the crests and acclivities of the hills which bounded the scene.
Mr. Williams, the interpreter, who had lived long in China, and was familiar with the Buddhist worship, recognized its peculiarities in the precisely similar ceremonies performed at the grave by the Japanese priest. A neat enclosure of bamboo was subsequently put up about the American grave by the authorities, and a small hut was erected near, for a Japanese guard to watch for a time, according to their custom.
英語喉オンラインコースへ飛ぶ（ニュースレター登録をお願いします）
