KASHMIR TO CHINA 217 



erect a new pagoda in order to " acquire merit/ 1 but 

 as no such merit is known to accrue from the repair 

 of an old one, private donations for such a com- 

 mendable purpose are seldom forthcoming. 



There is nothing romantic about the "road to 

 Mandalay," at least, certainly, not about the rail- 

 road which we took in preference to the slower 

 flotilla-steamers, thus avoiding the trip by the old 

 "road" between the rather desolate banks of the 

 Irrawaddy ; nor was there, to our minds, much that 

 was romantic about Mandalay itself. In eastern 

 cities one expects age above all, and this perhaps ac- 

 counts for Mandalay's lack of charm. For the capi- 

 tal of King Mindon Min dates only from 1856, and 

 is laid out in the regular symmetrical blocks of New 

 York or the Back Bay of Boston, and the streets 

 and avenues, or "roads" bear such prosaic names 

 as " 84th Street" or " B Road." It has an area of 

 eighteen square miles and impresses one chiefly 

 with the glare of its unsheltered, dusty, white ex- 

 panse. There is little shade in the whole great city. 

 As for its sights, when one has visited King The- 

 baw's palace, the Fort, and the Kuthodaw Pagoda, 

 guarded by mighty griffins and surrounded by 729 

 small pavilions, each containing a slab on which is 

 a verse of the Buddhist scriptures in Burmese, one 

 has seen the principal features of the town. Its in- 



