

SHANS I,QADING COMMISSARIAT STORE 



These great hats are worn by all Shans — men, women, and children — and when new 

 have the appearance of shields rather than hats. To look down on a market-place in any 

 of the Shan States is like looking on a field of gigantic mushrooms. So great is the size of 

 their headgear that in narrow passages the people often have difficulty in passing each other. 



architects, builders, and principal crafts- 

 men. Them he commanded to build him 

 a city. Thus runs the story, and though 

 Pagan was never a religious city in the 

 sense in which Lhassa, governed by 

 monks, is a religious city, it came to have 

 a great many pagodas, thousands of them 

 (later one ruler is said to have used 4,000 

 of them at one time to build fortifica- 

 tions) ; and some of the best of these, 

 in' better or worse state of preservation, 

 are all that remain of ancient Pagan. 



Excavations are being made under the 

 scholarly S. D. O. (a native Burmese 

 who was a sort of secretary to the last 

 king), who has uncovered some very in- 

 teresting buildings. 



Pagodas were built of stone and brick 

 and so remain, while the palaces of the 

 king and his people, uniformly of wood, 

 have long since disappeared. From the 

 loth to the 13th century Pagan was a 

 celebrated center of Buddhist learning. 

 Fugitive bands of Buddhists from India 



845 



