ef to the mind, and has sometimes even a dramatic
effect. I have twice observed such breaks in journals; the first in
Edinburgh, in the journal of the City Clerk. The break occurs when the
Provost and Clerk lay cold on Floddon Field, and the entries are taken
up in a new hand with a minute which begins--"Owing to a rumour of a
disaster in the south." The second break, I saw the other day in the
Madras records. It occured when the French called at Fort George in
1746. The break in my journal is simply the result of yesterday being so
full of interest that I did not write up till this forenoon, after a
pause for rest and refreshment.

So to hark back. The landing at Rangoon and coming up the river was the
best part of the journey from Madras. For descriptions of coming up the
Rangoon river see other writers. G. and I had been kept awake for
several nights by the natives[20] and finally had to shut our port and
snatched an hour or two of sleep without air so as to be without
noise,--this after various expeditions to try and quiet the beasts
outside, but nothing but drowning would have stopped their horrid
exuberance.

[20] Native in Burmah stands for native of India, not a Burman.

The peace that you feel in Iona seemed to lie over the country as we
came up the Rangoon river.

The Golden Pagoda stands up very simply and beautifully above the flat
country, and beneath it palms and ship's masts look very lowly things
indeed. It seems a perfect conductor of thought from earth to sky; the
gentle concave curves of its sides are more natural lines of repose than
those of our challenging spires. I had been prepared for
little--pictures and photographs have dwarfed the thing--they do not
give the firmness and delicacy in form and the sentiment that it
inspires. It is like the Burmans religion; there's a sense of happiness
in the way its wide gold base amongst nestling green palms and foliage
of trees gradually contracts till the point rises quietly against the
blue and fleecy clouds, where the glint of gold and flash from jewels
seems to unite heaven and earth.

The spire is 372 feet, two feet higher than St Paul's, but the terrace
from which it rises is 166 feet from the level of the ground, and as
lower Burmah is very flat, it is visible twenty-two miles from Rangoon.

It was unmitigatedly hot when we got from the tender to the wharf.
Relatives who met us said it was their hottest weather, so we hugged the
shade. But this