526 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
with skirts, close buttoned in front; over the 
shoulders, back, and breast, there is suspended 
a kind of ruff, or collar, of detached pieces, of 
the thinness and stiffness of pasteboard, covered 
with cloth. This is meant, I presume, for ar¬ 
mour. On the head there is a round brass hel¬ 
met ending in a peak, and decorated with a 
wreath of tinsel for the soldiers, and gold flow¬ 
ers for the officers. The Myolat-wun was the 
commandant of this body-guard. The costume 
is unbecoming, grotesque, cumbrous, and not 
less unsuitable to the climate than to military 
habits. 
Dec. 7.—The amusements of this day com¬ 
menced at eleven o’clock, and took place near 
the King’s water-palace, on a kind of glacis 
which lies immediately between the river and 
the walls of the town. It consisted of weaning 
a young male elephant, and of elephant fights. 
The young male elephants are weaned at three 
years old,—that is to say, they are then sepa¬ 
rated from their dams and broken in,—a process 
which appears to be nearly as tedious and diffi¬ 
cult as that of breaking in a full-grown ele¬ 
phant taken in the forest. The process which 
we saw much resembled that of yesterday ; but 
a singular ceremony was performed before it 
commenced, which deserves mention: it con- 
