THE GREAT PAGODA OF BURMAH. 103

feet. One peculiarity in all the statues of Guadama
is that his fingers and toes are all of the same
length, that the left shoulder is always uncovered,
while over the right shoulder is thrown his gilt
robe, represented in the yellow dress of the Bud-
dhist priests.

- But we are now on the platform and have a little
more room in which to move and to look about us.
Immediately facing us is a statue of Guadama

twelve feet high, which we cannot pass by : we also

panorama when viewed from the plateau of the
Pagoda. This plateau is a rectangular area of
between two and three acres, paved with brick and
tile, and studded with many lesser pagodas—poles
for banners, emblems of Henza or the sacred Goose,
and ornamented with many splendid trees whose
trunks are encased in brickwork. Here too lie
many of our English soldiers who fell in the two
sieges of Rangoon: some were buried on the plat-
form, and others in the ground adjoining the

al

THE PAGODA. (Firom a Photograph.)

notice that all around the base of the Pagoda there | Pagoda on the banks of the river. Having seen

are altars, but as we have not come to worship, our
first impulse is to take advantage of our elevation
to see the surrounding country. Nor are we
disappointed, for although the neighbourhood is as
level as the fens of England, yet here and there are
rich patches of timber ; while the Irrawaddy and
other rivers with their many winding tributaries,
and the town of Rangoon itself with its picturesque
lakes studded with lovely islets, make really a fine

ee ee

the distant view, we turn our eyes again to what is
going on immediately around us. We shall admire
the extreme richness of the carving of the base ot
the Pagoda which is shown us in the large en-
eraving, and be struck by the resemblance which
the symbols round this and other Pagodas, griflins,
sphinxes, crocodiles, &., bear to the kindred figures
seen in Egypt—but all attempts to connect the

religions of the two nations must end in mere