wide, and one h igh; it is -excavated a little on the upper
part, on which an offering of rice is placed. On the sides of
this stone are carved a variety of characters, denoting the
rank of the person who makes the offering, as well as the
bbject of his petition, together with the date.
‘‘Two of these inscriptions, copied a t the time, have since
been translated by a gentleman acquainted with the Chinese
characters. The first gives an account of a man about to sail
for China, in the reign of Kien Lung, the late monarch of
tha t country; this person implores the divine aid in protecting
him during his voyage. The other is dated in the
twenty-first year of the reign of Kia-King, the present
emperor of China, answering to the year 1816, in which we
visited Loo-choo. This is an invocation to the deity for
success in a,literary pursuit.
“' Two narrow strips of paper, with characters inscribed
Oh them, which by consent of the natives were taken
from a pillar in the temple, and which have since heen
translated, prove to be invocations, one to the supreme
deity, and the other to the evil spirit. The first is
on a’ slip o f ¿paper, two feet long, by two inches wide,
and contains a supplication for pardon. The latter in*.
vocation begins by ¿seven rows of the character symbolical
of the Devil. In the upper line there are seven,
and in the last* one, so that a triangular page is formed of
twenty-eight characters, each signifying the Devil; land
the prayer itself is written in a narrow perpendicular line
underneath; the whole inscription resembling in form a
kite with a long tail attached to it.”
Polygamy is not allowed in Loo-choo as in China, and
the king, it appears, is the only person permitted by law to
have concubines; they invariably spoke with horror of the
Chinese practice, which allows a plurality of wives, and were
much gratified on learning tha t the English customs in this
respect were similar to those of Loo-choo. The women are
not treated so well as we were led to expect from the mild*
ness of character in the men, and their liberality of thinking
in general. The upper classes of women are confined a
good deal to their houses, and the lower orders perform
much of the hard work of husbandry. We saw them a t a
distance, in great numbers, carrying loads on their heads.
M&dera says that the women are not treated with much
indulgence, being even restricted from using fans; and
that when they are met out of doors by the men, they
take no notice of one another, whatever may be the degree
of relationship or intimacy subsisting between them. The
perseverance with which they kept the women from our
sight is curious, and leads us to conjecture that the general
practice of the island is to seclude the women at all times.
In this respect they differ from the Japanese, who ar-e