untry that it
may well form our last peep at Burma.

Far away in the jungle on the crest of a lonely hill stands a ruined
pagoda. The white ornamental plaster-work which once beautified it has
long since disappeared, and in the rents and fissures which seam its
rich red brickwork venomous serpents hide.

The niche which formerly contained a Buddha is unoccupied, but, as
though to soften its decay, kindly creepers have covered its rugged
exterior with a bower of foliage and flowers, while the leogryphs
which once marked the entrance to its enclosure are buried in
vegetation. All around are trees of many kinds, which tower above the
jungle, among which large and beautiful butterflies flit among the
flowers, while birds of gay plumage gambol among the tree-tops to the
distant song of the bulbul. It was a pretty scene, but sad in its
loneliness, to which a touch of pathos was added by the figure of a
solitary priest praying before the empty shrine. Wondering what had
brought him so far from any known habitation, I watched him long as
he prayed. Just as the sun set and the day closed he plucked a lovely
flower from the scrub and placed it reverently on the shrine where
Buddha once had stood, and as I turned my pony's head in the direction
of my distant camp, the slowly-retreating figure of the "hpungi"
became lost in the glory of the sunset.

THE END

* * * * *

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* * * * *

_BY THE SAME ARTIST AND AUTHOR_

BURMA

By R. TALBOT KELLY, R.B.A.

_Containing 75 full-page Illustrations in Colour. Square Demy 8vo.,
cloth, gilt top_

Price 20/- net

(_Post free, Price 20s. 6d._)

"His landscapes--in which Nature is seen unforced by the hands of
col