GREAT BELL OF RANGOON. 283 



dinary revelations, directing them towards the objects of their pursuit, the 

 relics were found on a hill about a mile from the town, and were, at the same 

 place, deposited in a cell dug for that purpose, with the eight hairs, and a 

 monument erected over them. The account also states, that vast treasures 

 were deposited with them. 



Bells are commonly suspended near monuments of the largest class, or 

 which have, for particular reasons, any celebrity. They are not considered as 

 necessary appendages to the monuments, but are merely offerings, and are used 

 by worshippers, to make it more extensively known among men and Nats^ 

 that an offering has been presented, and an act of worship performed. They 

 are suspended a few feet from the ground, and rung by striking them on the 

 outside. The first bell of which we have any particular account of being pre- 

 sented as a religious offering to the monument of Shwe-da-gon, was given by a 

 king of Pegu, some say more than three hundred years ago. Its weight was 

 555,550 picktha, or viss, 5 tickals and 5 moos, about 407 tons, 19 cwt. 2 quarters 

 and 6 lbs. Its diameter was about twenty feet, the depth of the inside twenty- 

 six feet, and its circumference a little more than sixty feet. The sound of 

 this bell was tormenting to the ears of the heretical world ; it became, also, an 

 object of plunder. A foreigner, whose name was Zenga, with a fleet of se- 

 ven vessels, came, and with his armed force, succeeded in taking it down, and 

 conveying it as far as a large creek, about a mile to the eastward of Rangoon, 

 and when attempting to put it on board, it sunk, and was irrecoverably lost. 

 The large bell now suspended near Shwe-da-goUt met with almost a similar 

 fate during the late war. While an attempt was making to put it on board a 

 ship, it sunk j but after remaining several months at the bottom of the river, it 

 was taken up and restored to its former situation. The inscription, of which 

 the two first sheets contain a copy, is cut in twelve lines of large characters 

 round the circumference of the bell. 

 Rangoon, June, 1826. 



