considered the curious history of the old "incense-assemblies,"
whose elaborate ceremonial could be explained only by help of
numerous diagrams. One chapter at least would be required for the
subject of the ancient importation of incense-materials from
India, China, Annam, Siam, Cambodia, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java,
Borneo, and various islands of the Malay archipelago,--places all
named in rare books about incense. And a final chapter should
treat of the romantic literature of incense,--the poems, stories,
and dramas in which incense-rites are mentioned; and especially
those love-songs comparing the body to incense, and passion to
the eating flame:--

Even as burns the perfume lending thy robe its fragance,
Smoulders my life away, consumed by the pain of longing!

....The merest outline of the subject is terrifying! I shall
attempt nothing more than a few notes about the religious, the
luxurious, and the ghostly uses of incense.


III

The common incense everywhere burned by poor people before
Buddhist icons is called an-soku-ko. This is very cheap. Great
quantities of it are burned by pilgrims in the bronze censers set
before the entrances of famous temples; and in front of roadside
images you may often see bundles of it. These are for the use of
pious wayfarers, who pause before every Buddhist image on their
path to repeat a brief prayer and, when possible, to set a few
rods smouldering at the feet of the statue. But in rich temples,