( 40 ) 



seven tiers of roofing, each diminishing in size upwards, and the 

 whole crowned with a gilded htee, a privilege alone conceded to 

 Royalty by the Buddhistic creed. The Royal Council-house and 

 Royal Court-house are likewise carved wooden buildings on a 

 masonry base, but there is nothing remarkably attractive about 

 them. The Mint, as well as could be judged from a distance, was 

 entirely of masonry, and not of the Burmanic type. 



70. I sadly regretted having to leave the capital without seeing 

 Failure to scrutinize the palace the palace-grounds, more especially 



grounds. the Royal garden ; but opportunity 



did not offer itself I am sorry to say, and I hardly liked to trouble 

 the Resident again to obtain permission for me to satisfy my 

 curiosity, though I fear I threw out one or two broad hints.* The 

 Rev. Mr. Marks very kindly offered to obtain His Majesty's per- 

 mission for me to go over the gardens ; but, from what Captain 

 Strover said, I felt there was little chance of his being able to fulfil 

 his promise. 



71. On quitting the gate we mounted and returned by 

 Return to Residency from the the road we came, reaching the Re- 



palace - sidency about half-past two o'clock. 



It was a fine broad street down which we passed, but unmetalled and 

 abominably dusty. From the palace entrance to the city gate either 

 side of the road was lined by stalls, in which were exposed for sale 

 all sorts of piece-goods, mock jewellery, glass, lacquer-ware, combs, 



* Dr. Dawson tells us, the King's garden within the palace enclosure at Mandalay, is in the figure 

 of an irregular parallelogram, and covers nearly two acres of ground. It is intersected by two small 

 sheets of water, in the shape of a Eoman Cross. Lying to the north of the palace buildings, you 

 find it surrounded by a fanciful wooden railing standing about three feet high. The diminu- 

 tive posts of this railing are exquisitely wrought all over with lacquer work, in-laid by variegated 

 glass, representing certain fabulous animals and birds. As you approach this garden, it catches 

 your eye instantly as something pleasant to look upon, and for which there is a fondness even in 

 one's very nature. The walks are all composed of a raised brick- work, and these again are covered 

 in by a coating of firm mortar; facing the garden gate stands the "garden palace 1 '' which is 

 a light, airy-looking structure, and except the posts, is made wholly of bamboo. Here his Majesty 

 occasionally sits, and receives the officers of his government. A few paces further on to the 

 left of the garden palace, is a beautiful lake, formed by the extension of one of the limbs of the 

 crucial-shaped sheets of water, intersecting the garden. The unrippled surface of this little lake, 

 looks like a polished mirror. On its still bosom, floats a unique and fanciful little bamboo 

 house, which has been named the " water palace." And if there is a cool spot in the capital 

 on a hot burning day with the quick-silver dancing in a thermometer at ten or twelve degrees 

 above "blood heat," it is surely beneath the shade of that little water palace. In the angular 

 spaces left by the position of the sheets of water, the grounds are very tastefully laid out with a 

 great variety of shrubs, plants, and trees, in a mariner the best possible for giving effect to 

 the scene. Miniature hills put up in different directions, whose sides are made to resemble, as 

 nearly as they can, natural hills in all then wildness and grandeur. Fragments of rocks 

 crop out, and here and there masses of boulders are seen in the sides of these elevations. In 

 the little hollows formed by these projections aud inequalities of surface, plants and shrubs 

 have been set out with considerable skill, whose verdant foliage and variously-tinted flowers, give 

 them a rich and most romantic appearance. On some of these eminences, the tops are sur- 

 mounted by minature villas, from the windows of which you look out upon a scene which rivals 

 in beauty some of the most vivid and graphic pictures delineated by classic poets as an enchanted 

 ground, or fairy land. It is truly a beautiful garden, and as picturesque as it is really grand. 



