Sep., 1891. 
BURMA AND ITS PEOPLE. 
195 
This wonderful building stands, surrounded by noble 
trees, on a lofty, square, artificial platform, and is approached 
by four long flights of steps from the four quarters of the 
compass. Let us approach it by the principal or eastern one, 
a broad series of stone stairs, steep and worn by the feet of 
countless pilgrims into almost dangerous roundness, 20 feet 
wide, and some 200 yards long, rising in that distance to the 
level of the central plateau, and covered the whole way by a 
roof supported by teak pillars. 
Entering by a lofty archway of grotesque design, in which 
strange dragon-like forms prevail, you find yourself at once 
in this covered way, which is extended on either side into a 
series of platforms. On these stand numerous rest-houses 
and booths for the sale of rice, cakes, sugar-cane, and other 
comestibles, native books, cigars, candles and gold-leaf for 
votive offerings, and a host of other trifles. 
The first object which attracts your notice is a row of 
mendicants, halt, blind, maimed, lepers, who hold up their 
alms-bowls for pice as you go by, but do not curse you if you 
fail to respond to their silent appeal to your pity. 
Arrived at the top of the great flight of steps, you find 
yourself in a square of some 350 yards each way, the 
centre of which is occupied by a vast mass of masonry, 
flanked by scores of huge figures of elephants, standing and 
coucliant, and of strange dragon-like beasts of quaint and 
formidable aspect, the whole resplendent with gold and 
vermilion. 
Behind these the square base of the Pagoda is ramped off in 
tiers of masonry, and from the middle of it rises the enormous 
spire, gracefully swelling out below, and sweeping upward in 
fine curves to a height exceeding that of the ball of St. Paul’s, 
and gilt from base to summit, where it is capped by a Htee 
(pronounced Tee), an appendage shaped somewhat like a half- 
closed umbrella, adorned with jewels and hung with innumer¬ 
able sweet-toned bells, which sway with every breath of 
wind, and fill the air with their melodious tinkling. This 
Htee was the gift of the late King Theebaw in 1871 ; it 
contains the largest ruby in the world, and is valued at fully 
£50,000. 
In the middle of each of the four sides of the pagoda- 
base is a large temple, in which pilgrims are ever burning 
candles, telling their beads, and repeating their prayer 
formulae before images of the Buddha. Finally, parallel with 
these four sides, and separated from them by a broad paved 
terrace, is a quadrangle of closely-packed buildings, the work 
