£80 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
His Majesty is delighted with the temple, and 
considers it a chef-d'oeuvre of art. About the 
central building there is a quadrangular area, 
surrounding which, and of the same form, there 
is a covered gallery opening inwards, and hav¬ 
ing the outer wall covered with drawings as 
rude as possible. These, which are called “ Sia¬ 
mese paintings ” by the Burmans, represent the 
Buddhist Hell and all its punishments; the 
Heaven of the Nats; but, above all, the birth, 
education, adventures, and death of Gautama. 
Each group has one very necessary accompani¬ 
ment,—a written description telling what it re¬ 
presents. For the satisfaction of the Oriental 
Mythologist, I give the following translations 
of some of these descriptions. 
“ A representation of the birth of the deity, 
on the way to De-wa-da-ha near the Long-pa-ni 
forest; his mother, the Queen Thi-ri-maha-ma- 
ya, wife of Thod-da-da-na, King of Kap-pi-la- 
wat, standing upright, and holding a branch of 
a tree with one hand, and her younger sister 
with the other; four Brahmas (superior celestial 
beings) receiving him in a net of gems, and four 
Kings of Nats (inferior celestial beings) per¬ 
forming the same ceremony with a black leo¬ 
pard’s skin, and a silk web of earthly manufac- 
