THE GREAT PAGODA OF BURMAH. 101

THE GREAT PAGODA OF BURALATL.

STEPS OF THE SHWAY DAGON PAGODA.

WO miles north of the town of Rangoon
in British Burmah there stands the
Shway Dagon (i. e. Golden Hill)
Pagoda, which in addition to being

ithe grandest and most elegant mass of solid masonry

that can well be conceived, is also the most sacred
resort of the professors of the Buddhist religion.

{Before we have finished this paper, we hope to

have something to say both about Buddhism and

the Pagoda which is dedicated to the service of that
faith,—but in the onset let us have a clear under-
standing where Burmah is situated, and what is
known about the town of Rangoon, whose chief
glory this Pagoda is. A glance at the map shows
us that Burmah, part of which is now British
territory, is a wedge of country s.z. of the Indian

Peninsula lying between Chinaand the Bay of Bengal,

and forming the northern end of that Malayan

Peninsula which tapers off at its southern extremity

in the town of Singapore. Its position ensures for

it a great future : it is inevitable that at no distant
period it must be the highway to China. The fast
clippers which used to be freighted with cargoes
of new teas, and which were wont to get up
regattas whose starting-point was Canton, and
whose goal was the London Docks, are already
things of the past, for the Suez Canal has provided

| the garrison of our English troops. When our)

a shorter route; and soonarailway will cut through |

Burmah, and ships will no longer have the tedious
and dangerous navigation through the Straits of
Malacca to Canton, but will receive their cargoes
for Europe in the port of Rangoon. This is already
an English town, and the Pagoda, although used by
the Buddhists for religious purposes, is likewise

soldiers first took the town of Rangoon, in 1825, it
was a miserable collection of bamboo huts—a fire
which swept through the place afforded an oppor-
tunity of rebuilding it with more substantial

_materials—but that opportunity was not embraced,

and in 1850 the place was once more destroyed by
fire. In 1852 the British troops again stormed the
town, and when they took possession of the Shway
Dagon Pagoda the whole place fell into their hands.
Since that time the benefits of British rule have
made themselves felt; wide streets and stone
buildings have supplanted narrow lanes and bamboo
huts—drainage and other results of civilization
have followed. On either side of the road leading
to the Pagoda, which is still called ‘Pagoda Road,”
monasteries and Pagodas, varying in size and rich-

| ness according to the circumstances of the builders,

used to stand in admirable confusion; to erect a new
building of this sort was considered very meri-
torious, but no credit attached to those who simply
repaired them: they were therefore allowed to
crumble away uncared for, and even now when
the Bungalows of British residents have taken the)
place of these buildings, on either side of ‘ Pagoda
Road” a remnant of a Pagoda or a huge griffin,
more or less dilapidated, reminds the traveller to
the Pagoda of what the Road was like before the
days of British rule. At the foot of the steps seen
in the engraving at the head of this paper some
half-ruinous buildings still remain which are occu-
pied by Poonghies or Priests—but these people are
about to remove to a site given to them by the
Government on the other side of the Pagoda,

We will suppose that good fortune has led us
to choose for our visit to the Pagoda a day which
is a Buddhist festival—either the new or full
moon, or the specially great festival which is held
early in each year. At the foot of these steps we
shall find an immense crowd of Burmese from all
parts of the province; the Burman ladies dressed
most becomingly in loose silk dresses, with long
jackets of silk gauze, their necklaces of gold inlaid
with coral and gems, and large gold and amber
ornaments fixed in holes made in the lobes of the
ears—the Karen women with their quieter but not
less beautiful dresses of dark cotton with red
edgings, turbans of the same material, a girdle of
white fringe, and huge hats, as large as an English
umbrella, made out of the leaf of the large bamboo.
The men, too, contribute to the picturesque appear-
ance of the crowd: the elders wearing over their