mans do so
well, and it is gilded all over; for my own part I prefer the dark teak
ungilded, but still this looks very handsome among the rest. That tall
post like a flagstaff, with streamers flying from it, is a praying-post;
can you make out the figure like a weather-cock at the top? It is a
goose instead of a cock, and doesn't tell the direction of the wind. It
is the sacred goose. The brilliance of all this detail takes one's
breath away. On every side we see the people worshipping, and yet it is
not a festival day, for then we should hardly be able to move for the
crowds on the platform--where there are tens now there would then be
thousands. The worshippers drop down quite simply on the pavement before
a favourite shrine and hold up their hands toward it, sometimes with an
offering of flowers in them, or even a big taper. There is a woman
passing smoking a monstrous "green" cigar. It is a huge thick roll of
light-coloured stuff like shavings, about as long as your arm from elbow
to wrist, and as thick as a man's finger. She has to open her little
round mouth wide to get the end in. It is not filled with pure tobacco,
but a chopped mixture of all sorts; even you could smoke it without any
harm. Why yes, women smoke here almost all day, and children too. They
do say the mothers give the babies-in-arms a whiff, but I haven't seen
that myself!

Set up everywhere are coloured umbrellas with fringes of coloured beads,
as large as those used for tents on lawns sometimes. We peer into
numberless shrines as we pass and see Buddhas of every sort peeping at
us out of the dim interiors; there are Buddhas of brass, Buddhas of
marble, Buddhas of alabaster, Buddhas coated with white paint, and
Buddhas covered with gold. Most of them are seated, always exactly in
the same position as the one we saw far away in Ceylon. This is
supposed to signify Buddha as he sat under the Bo tree meditating.
Others show him standing with one hand upraised, and this is to show
Buddha as he was when teaching, and others are lying down, but these are
the least common. They are supposed to show Buddha when he passed into
eternal calm.

Pink is by far the favourite colour for the people's clothes, and it is
very vivid, like the colour seen in striped coco-nut cream, but white is
also much worn, and there is some yellow in orange shades. Many of the
Burmese wear a shirt of maroon check, just like a check duster; these
are their workaday clothes, on f