no
less than eight times! Mandalay itself is only fifty years old, so
that it hardly appeared to them worth their while to build more
substantial dwellings, which might so soon have to be deserted; and in
this way they came to regard their homes as temporary, expending their
energies and wealth in the building of temples and monasteries
instead.

The streets of Mandalay are wide, and laid out in rectangles, as in
Rangoon, and, like all towns in Burma, the roads are heavily shaded by
trees. Foreign types are common in Mandalay, but the Burmese life here
is very pretty. Nowhere else are the people better dressed, and the
ladies rival the silk bazaar in the variety and beautiful colour of
their clothing. Until recently this was a royal city, and the ladies
pay great attention to the demands of fashion, whether it is in their
delicately-tinted garments, their embroidered sunshades or fan, or the
lace handkerchief with which they love to toy; and nothing in the way
of crowd could be nicer than these daintily-dressed and usually
prepossessing men and women. Fashion, however, has always _some_
drawback. The ladies in many cases smear their faces with a paste
called "thannakah," which has the effect of whitening the skin. The
result is very unfortunate, for it is not always put on evenly, and
only serves to make the ugly more forbidding, while it destroys the
soft warmth of colour and skin texture which so often makes these
women beautiful. Another unfortunate custom is their habit of smoking
such huge cheroots, which no mouth of ordinary size could possibly
hold without distortion.

All roads in Mandalay lead to the fort, lately the residence of the
Court. This consists of a huge square, 1-1/4 miles each way, entirely
surrounded by battlemented walls, and further protected by a wide and
deep moat. Quaint bridges cross the moat, and lead to gateways, each
surmounted by a "pyathat." Within the walls are the palace of the
King, and many other buildings of highly ornate and purely Burmese
character. Many of them have lately been destroyed by fire; but what
will interest us most is the rambling but most picturesque palace, the
lofty "pyathat" which is erected over Thebaw's throne being the finest
in the country, and so much admired by the Burmans as to be called
"the centre of the universe."

All these buildings are of timber, only the finest teak being used,
and the many columns which support the roofs of the halls of audienc