mples, which are in great number
both great and small. They be made round like a sugar loafe, some are as
high as a Church, very broad beneath, some a quarter of a mile in compasse:
within they be all earth done about with stone. They consume in these
Varellaes great quantity of golde; for that they be all gilded aloft: and
many of them from the top to the bottome: and euery ten or twelue yeeres
they must be new gilded, because the raine consumeth off the golde: for
they stand open abroad. If they did not consume their golde in these
vanities, it would be very plentifull and good cheape in Pegu. About two
dayes iourney from Pegu there is a Varelle or Pagode, which is the
pilgrimage of the Pegues: it is called Dogonne, and is of a woonderfull
bignesse, and all gilded from the foot to the toppe. [Sidenote: The
Tallipoies or Priests of Pegu.] And there is an house by it wherein the
Tallipoies which are their priests doe preach. This house is fiue and fifty
paces in length, and hath three pawnes or walks in it, and forty great
pillars gilded, which stand betweene the walks; and it is open on all sides
with a number of small pillars, which be likewise gilded: it is gilded with
golde within and without. There are houses very faire round about for the
pilgrims to lie in: and many goodly houses for the Tallipoies to preach in,
which are full of images both of men and women, which are all gilded ouer
with golde. It is the fairest place as I suppose, that is in the world: it
standeth very high, and there are foure wayes to it, which all along are
set with trees of fruits, in such wise that a man may goe in the shade
aboue two miles in length. And when their feast day is, a man can hardly
passe by water or by land for the great presse of people; for they come
from all places of the kingdome of Pegu thither at their feast. In Pegu
they haue many Tallipoies or priests, which preach against all abuses. Many
men resort vnto them. When they enter into their kiack, that is to say,
their holy place or temple, at the doore their is a great iarre of water
with a cocke or a ladle in it, and there they wash their feet; and then
they enter in, and lift vp their hands to their heads, first to their
preacher, and then to the Sunne, and so sit downe. [Sidenote: The apparell
of their priests.] The Tallipoies go very strangly apparelled with one
cambaline or thinne cloth next to their body of a browne colour, another of
yellow doubled many times vpon