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of the monarch that causes most suffering among his subjects. It is rather that of the inferior officers of government whose rapacity and extortion renders property, liberty, and life itself insecure. Deceit, fraud and lying are the natural, if not necessary consequences of a system which leaves the people entirely at the mercy of those who bear rule over them. The religion is Buddhism, one of the most ancient and wide-spread superstitions existing on the face of the earth. Its sacred Divinity, or Buddh, is Gaudama, who has passed into a state of eternal and unconscious repose, which they consider the summit of felicity; but which seems to us to differ little from annihilation. Images of this god are the chief objects of worship. These are found in every house, and are enshrined in pagodas and temples, and in sacred caves which appear to have been used from time immemorial for religious purposes. The wealth and labor bestowed on the latter show how great the population must have been in former ages. Dr. Malcom describes one cave on the Salwen, which is wholly filled with images of every size, while the whole face of the mountain for ninety feet above the cave is incrusted with them. "On every jutting crag stands some marble image covered with gold, and spreading its uncouth proportions to the setting sun. Every recess is converted into shrines for others. But imposing as is this spectacle, it shrinks into insignificance compared with the scene presented on entering the cavern itself. It is of vast size, and needs no human art to render it sublime. The eye is confused and the heart appalled at the prodigious exhibition of infatuation and folly. Everywhere--on the floor, over head and on every jutting point, are crowded together images of Gaudama--the offerings of successive ages. A ship of five hundred tons could not carry away the half of them." Pagodas are innumerable. In the inhabited parts there is scarcely a peak, bank, or swelling hill, uncrowned by one of these structures. In general, they are almost solid, without door or window, and contain some supposed relic of Gaudama. The religious system of the Burmans contains many excellent moral precepts and maxims, which, however being without sanction or example, are utterly powerless to mould the character of the people to wisdom or virtue. A curious feature of Buddhism is, that one of the highest motives it presents to its followers is the "obtaining of mer
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