they pound rice; as the litter passes, the pounded rice from the left-hand side is moved across to the right, and the two are mixed together into one.  This is called the blending of the rice-meal.[113] Two candles are lighted, the one on the right hand and the other on the left of the corridor; and after the litter has passed, the candle on the left is passed over to the right, and, the two wicks being brought together, the candles are extinguished.  These last three ceremonies are only performed at the weddings of persons of high rank; they are not observed at the weddings of ordinary persons.  The bride takes with her to her husband’s house, as presents, two silken robes sewed together in a peculiar manner, a dress of ceremony with wings of hempen cloth, an upper girdle and an under girdle, a fan, either five or seven pocket-books, and a sword:  these seven presents are placed on a long tray, and their value must depend upon the means of the family.

[Footnote 113:  Cf.  Gibbon on Roman Marriages, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. iv. p. 345:  “The contracting parties were seated on the same sheepskin; they tasted a salt cake of far, or rice; and this confarreation, which denoted the ancient food of Italy, served as an emblem of their mystic union of mind and body.”]

The dress of the bride is a white silk robe with a lozenge pattern, over an under-robe, also of white silk.  Over her head she wears a veil of white silk, which, when she sits down, she allows to fall about her as a mantle.

The bride’s furniture and effects are all arranged for her by female attendants from her own house on a day previous to the wedding; and the bridegroom’s effects are in like manner arranged by the women of his own house.

When the bride meets her husband in the room where the relations are assembled, she takes her seat for this once in the place of honour, her husband sitting in a lower place, not directly opposite to her, but diagonally, and discreetly avoiding her glance.

On the raised part of the floor are laid out beforehand two trays, the preparations for a feast, a table on which are two wagtails,[114] a second table with a representation of Elysium, fowls, fish, two wine-bottles, three wine-cups, and two sorts of kettles for warming wine.  The ladies go out to meet the bride, and invite her into a dressing-room, and, when she has smoothed her dress, bring her into the room, and she and the bridegroom take their seats in the places appointed for them.  The two trays are then brought out, and the ladies-in-waiting, with complimentary speeches, hand dried fish and seaweed, such as accompany presents, and dried chestnuts to the couple.  Two married ladies then each take one of the wine-bottles which have been prepared, and place them in the lower part of the room.  Then two handmaids, who act as wine-pourers, bring the kettles and place them in the lower part of the room.  The two wine-bottles