3-065-979 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Japanese Cemetery of Iruma, 1874. 'The wreck of the French mail-steamer Nil,...upon the coast of Japan, with the loss of eighty-eight lives, has been mentioned among the shipping disasters of this year. We are obliged to Mr. G. Cullen Pearson, of Yokohama, one of the firm of Pearson and Laurence, for two sketches, taken a few days after this misfortune, in which his partner, Mr. Sydney Laurence, was among the lost... The sketch shows the native cemetery adjoining the temple at Iruma, where all the bodies washed ashore were buried with decency and respect. Nothing could exceed the kindness of the Japanese to the survivors, or the attention paid by these people to the interment of the bodies. Nineteen bodies only have come ashore...The Japanese pay great attention to their cemeteries. The gravestones, called "sekito," are well cut, and are of various forms. In some cases large rough stones are placed instead of the square-hewn. Flowers are generally placed in a small bottle or vase, called "kanazashi," before each grave. The crosses mark the spot in Iruma cemetery set apart for those drowned in the Nil, and a small rough stone wall has been put around to separate this spot from the native burial-ground'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.