Sacrifice is conducted after the following manner: Hoh
asks the people which one among them wishes to give himself
as a sacrifice to God for the sake of his fellows. He is then
placed upon the fourth table, with ceremonies and the offering
up of prayers: the table is hung up in a wonderful manner by
means of four ropes passing through four cords attached to
firm pulley-blocks in the small dome of the temple. This done
they cry to the God of mercy, that he may accept the offering,
not of a beast as among the heathen, but of a human being.
Then Hoh orders the ropes to be drawn and the sacrifice is
pulled up above to the centre of the small dome, and there it
dedicates itself with the most fervent supplications. Food is
given to it through a window by the priests, who live around
the dome, but it is allowed a very little to eat, until it has atoned
for the sins of the State. There with prayer and fasting he
cries to the God of heaven that he might accept its willing offer-
ing. And after twenty or thirty days, the anger of God being
appeased, the sacrifice becomes a priest, or sometimes, though
rarely, returns below by means of the outer way for the priests.
Ever after, this man is treated with great benevolence and much
honor, for the reason that he offered himself unto death for the
sake of his country. But God does not require death.

The priests above twenty-four years of age offer praises from
their places in the top of the temple. This they do in the mid-
dle of the night, at noon, in the morning and in the evening, to
wit, four times a day they sing their chants in the presence of
God. It is also their work to observe the stars and to note with
the astrolabe their motions and influences upon human things,