but the caps are
so much too small for her feet that she has had to leave the little toe
outside! This is a fine dodge, and Mah Shwe can say she takes twos or
threes in shoes with truth, even if her feet are much larger!

The monks are standing in a solemn group near their staircase when we go
back, and when I suggest to Ramaswamy we should give them something he
disagrees vigorously. "Not touching money, Master, only food and rice,
no money." All right, we won't tempt them, and I put back the rupee I
had taken out. You must have noticed already that the money here is the
same as in India. Then we climb into the miserable little box on wheels
which is waiting for us; it is the only cab we can get here, and calls
itself a ticca-gharry. The little rat of a pony seems a very long way
off; it is a tight squeeze for us inside, and there is certainly no room
on the box beside the hairy-legged native for Ramaswamy, but he hops up
on a board there is behind for the purpose, and hangs on as we jolt away
to the Golden Pagoda.

The first thing we see when we arrive at it are two enormous monsters,
not like any animal in existence, made of white plaster with glaring red
eyes. They have dragons' heads and tigers' bodies and are most terribly
ferocious. These guard the entrance to the pagoda and are called
leogryphs. Between them there is a long ascent rising to the pagoda
platform. The place is like a bazaar with people in their gay clothes
coming and going, and the sun glinting through between the pillars at
the open spaces. It is difficult to tell the difference between men and
women, for all alike wear skirts and jackets, and you never see a man
with a beard, hardly ever with a moustache. But the true distinction is
that the men have a gay handkerchief called a _goungbaung_ wound round
their heads, and the women wear no head covering, and, as you have seen,
they never think of veiling their faces, like the Mohammedan women. The
men's head-gear is very different from that we saw in India; it is not a
huge and heavy erection, but just a silk or cotton scarf twisted up and
tucked in, and very often there is a "bird's nest" of dark hair sticking
out in the middle of it, for the men's hair is long as well as the
women's, but they roll it up so that it is not seen.

[Illustration: THE LEOGRYPH.]

Everyone is very bright and friendly, and the girls who are selling all
sorts of little tawdry things on the stalls by the stairs call ou