TO THE COURT OF AVA. 239 
of gold affixed to the front of the cap. The 
princes were distinguished by dresses of supe¬ 
rior splendour, and especially by the form and 
decoration of their caps. The dress of the 
Prince of Sarawadi was particularly brilliant. 
The courtiers, according to their rank, were 
seated more or less near to the throne. The 
nearest to it was the Prince of Sarawadi; for 
the heir-apparent, having as yet, on account of 
his youth, no public station assigned to him, did 
not attend. The inferior courtiers were scat¬ 
tered over the body and wings of the hall: this 
might have made their number appear fewer 
than they really were. It struck us, however, 
that the attendance was not numerous, and cer¬ 
tainly it by no means equalled the crowd assem¬ 
bled at the Siamese Court. The spectacle, upon 
the whole, was sufficiently imposing. Yet, not¬ 
withstanding the better taste of the Palace, and 
the superior dresses of the Burman courtiers, (for 
those of Siam, when I saw them, did not appear 
in their dresses of ceremony,) the pageant was 
less calculated to affect the imagination than 
that exhibited by the Court of Siam, where the 
demeanour of the courtiers was more constrain¬ 
ed, the crowd of suppliants more numerous, and 
the manners of the sovereign himself unques¬ 
tionably more imposing—authoritative and dig- 
