254 
BURMA AND ITS PEOPLE. 
Nov., 1891. 
But the glory of the place is in its ecclesiastical archi¬ 
tecture, if I may use the word. Time fails me to describe 
the “ Incomparable Pagoda,” or the “ Four hundred and fifty- 
one Pagodas,” where, grouped round a central shrine, are 
four hundred and fifty lesser ones, each containing a large 
upright slab of stone, on which is engraved a passage from 
the Buddhist sacred books ; or of the marvellously interesting 
“Araccan Pagoda,” with its great gilt bronze Gautama, its 
innumerable votive offerings, its paintings of the Buddhist 
hells, beside the realism of which the horrors of Dante's word 
painting seem feeble ; and, above all, the amazing multitude 
of worshippers—people of a dozen different tribes and races, 
who all day throng its approaches or kneel before its shrine. 
No less wonderful and of paramount beauty are the almost 
innumerable Kyoungs, of which two, the “ Golden” and the 
“ Queen’s,” stand foremost in excellence of design and 
elaborate daintiness of workmanship. The Queen’s Kyoung 
is shown in Plate 13. 
It is, fortunately, unnecessary for me to attempt the difficult 
task of describing buildings which admit of no comparison 
with anything of European origin, because the photographs 
which I was able to secure speak for themselves. I need only 
say that, with the exception of the steps by which they are 
approached, they are built wholly of teak wood, that there is 
scarcely a square foot of their surfaces which is not enriched 
with truly admirable carving and that from floor to topmost 
pinnacle they are covered with pure gold leaf. 
You may well imagine that their gilded corridors, their 
many-tiered roofs, fantastic spires and lofty pinnacles, rich 
with tracery and fretwork, glisten against the cloudless 
tropical sky with dazzling effect. 
One word about their inmates, the Hpoongyees. When¬ 
ever we visited these buildings we were received with that 
graceful courtesy which seems inborn in the Burman of high 
or low degree. The Buddhist brethren themselves showed 
us every part of their establishments: their chapels, with 
the sacred images of their master and the accessories of 
their services ; their dormitories and their libraries, in 
which some of their number were generally engaged in 
transcribing portions of the sacred literature in delicate 
characters on to prepared palm leaves, which are afterwards 
tied together into books. 
Remembering that the Pagoda and the Kyoung are alike 
sacred places in the eyes of the Buddhist, it is but simple 
courtesy in the English visitor to pay the same outward 
