the head of the procession; it is a square box of resinous wood,
covered over with white, and the body is placed in it in a sitting
posture.

[Illustration: THE SACRIFICE.]

[Illustration: A DAIMIO'S FUNERAL.]

[Illustration: CREMATION OF THE BODY.]

[Illustration: RELATIVES COLLECTING ASHES.]

All the members of the family attend the funeral, either on foot or
in norimons. If the wife and the heir be absent in Yeddo, they are
represented by the nearest relations. In this instance both are
present, from which it may be inferred that the sacrificial act has
taken place in the neighbourhood of Yeddo.

Although the Japanese sometimes bury their dead, they generally
practise cremation. Repulsive as this custom is to European ideas, it
must be remembered that the Japanese are not singular in preferring
it, as several of the most civilised nations of antiquity considered
it the most honourable mode of disposing of the bodies of the dead.
While the body is being reduced to ashes the priests tell their beads
and chant prayers for the soul of the departed, as the followers of
almost every religious sect in Japan believe in a state of purgatory.

The last scene shows the wife and son of the victim of the 'Hara Kiru'
collecting his ashes and depositing them in an earthenware jar. This
is afterwards sealed down and conveyed to the cemetery, or temple,