friends, or prove their sincerity. When enforced as a legal punishment,
it was practiced with due ceremony. It was a refinement of
self-destruction, and none could perform it without the utmost coolness
of temper and composure of demeanor, and for these reasons it was
particularly befitting the profession of bushi.

Antiquarian curiosity, if nothing else, would tempt me to give here a
description of this obsolete ceremonial; but seeing that such a
description was made by a far abler writer, whose book is not much read
now-a-days, I am tempted to make a somewhat lengthy quotation. Mitford,
in his "Tales of Old Japan," after giving a translation of a treatise on
_seppuku_ from a rare Japanese manuscript, goes on to describe an
instance of such an execution of which he was an eye-witness:--

"We (seven foreign representatives) were invited to follow the Japanese
witness into the _hondo_ or main hall of the temple, where the ceremony
was to be performed. It was an imposing scene. A large hall with a high
roof supported by dark pillars of wood. From the ceiling hung a
profusion of those huge gilt lamps and ornaments peculiar to Buddhist
temples. In front of the high altar, where the floor, covered with
beautiful white mats, is raised some three or four inches from the
ground, was laid a rug of scarlet felt. Tall candles placed at regular
intervals gave out a dim mysterious light, just sufficient to let all
the proceedings be seen. The seven Japanese took their places on the
left of the raised floor, the seven foreigners on the right. No other
person was present.

"After the interval of a few minutes of anxious suspense, Taki
Zenzaburo, a stalwart man thirty-two years of age, with a noble air,
walked into the hall attired in his dress of ceremony, with the peculiar