CHAPTER XV.
FUNERAL RITES AND MONUMENTS.
THE only occasion on which the Colymbians issue in any considerable numbers from their watery abode, and appear on land, is when they attend the funeral of some defunct Colymbian.
Diseases, as I have said, are almost unknown among them, owing to the care exercised in rearing only children who are pronounced absolutely sound by the competent authorities. Life below the water is extremely conducive to health, the clear pure water prevents all epidemics and infectious diseases, and keeps all the functions of the body in perfect order. Even accidents are almost impossible; for the heaviest weights fall on the body as softly as a down cushion; and if, for example, a child falls out of a window, it only mounts quietly to the surface of the water. When they die it is almost always of old age, and their burials are conducted with a certain amount of pomp and ceremony, varying according to the status occupied by the departed during his life.
The corpse, if of a poor person, is enveloped in a shroud formed of the fibres of a tough grass-like seaweed that grows in profusion in certain parts of the lagoon; if of a wealthy person, it is encased in the
