f, as the pyramids are characteristic of ancient Egypt.

Two uprights of bronze, stone, or wood, inclined to each other at the
summits, and held in position by a transverse beam piercing the pillars
at about three feet from their tops. Over this again is another beam
with horn-like curves at the ends, and turned upward, and simply laid on
the tops of the shafts. The approaches to some of these temples are
spanned by hundreds of such structures, which, when made of wood and
lacquered bright vermillion, look altogether curious.

On the topmost stair, as if guarding the main entrance to the sanctuary,
are two seated idols of the "god of war," in complete armour, each with
bow in hand and a quiver full of arrows over his shoulder, and protected
by a cage work of wire. What certainly gives us matter for speculation,
and causes us no little surprise, is to see the golden scales of their
splendid armour, and even their ruddy lacquered faces, bespattered with
pellets of chewed paper after the manner familiar to us as school boys;
when not satisfied with the correctness of the geographers, we used to
chew blotting paper to fling in recent discoveries on the wall maps. Do
these people desecrate their idols thus? There is no desecration here.
These little lumps of pulp are simply _prayers_, pieces of paper on
which the priests have traced some mystic characters for the use of the
devout, and which, because of their inability to reach the idol to paste
the strips on, they shoot through the wire in this manner.

We now pass under the last arch, with its monstrous swinging paper
lantern, into the courtyard of the temple. The first object which claims
our attention is a bronze horse, from which the temple takes its name.
The work of art--for so it is reckoned--would be more like a horse, if
its tail were less suggestive of a pump handle. Near is a bronze trough
filled with holy water, to be applied internally; and around three sides
of the square numerous empty houses, which, on high days and holidays,
are used as shops for the sale of sacred and fancy articles. Up a few
more steps and suddenly we are on the polished floor of the temple, and
standing amidst a throng of kneeling worshippers, with heads bowed and
hands pressed together in prayer.

Their mode of procedure at these shrines seems something after the
following: the worshipper first seizes a straw rope depending from the
edge of the roof of the temple, to which is attached