tombs are adorned with such sweet and fragrant flowers as the orange,
jessamine, myrtle, and rose. In Mexico the Indian carnation is popularly
known as the "flower of the dead," and the people of Tahiti cover their
dead with choice flowers. In America the Freemasons place twigs of
acacia on the coffins of brethren. The Buddhists use flowers largely for
funeral purposes, and an Indian name for the tamarisk is the "messenger
of Yama," the Indian God of Death. The people of Madagascar have a
species of mimosa, which is frequently found growing on the tombs, and
in Norway the funeral plants are juniper and fir. In France the custom
very largely nourishes, roses and orange-blossoms in the southern
provinces being placed in the coffins of the young. Indeed, so general
is the practice in France that, "sceptics and believers uphold it, and
statesmen, and soldiers, and princes, and scholars equally with children
and maidens are the objects of it."

Again, in Oldenburg, it is said that cornstalks must be scattered about
a house in which death has entered, as a charm against further
misfortune, and in the Tyrol an elder bush is often planted on a
newly-made grave.

In our own country the practice of crowning the dead and of strewing
their graves with flowers has prevailed from a very early period, a
custom which has been most pathetically and with much grace described by
Shakespeare in "Cymbeline" (Act iv. sc. 2):--

"With fairest flowers,
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azured harebell, like thy veins; no, nor