ked children--a boy and girl playing on the stone
pavement with the guttering wax of candles at the side of the arches;
and the kneeling youths and seniors bowing and repeating their sonorous
prayers, all within a few yards of each other, without one disturbing or
apparently distracting the other. Only I felt out of place, a long
standing Western figure from the Western world in topee and flannels
with a sketch book, scribbling: but a boy kindly held half of some
worshipper's candle to light my sketch book; priests in yellow robes
stood behind looking on, and made no remark.

[Illustration]

I fear an Occidental must look uncouth in such an Oriental setting; you
feel you ought at least not to stand up in a place like that; I mean for
aesthetic reasons--you overbalance the composition.

How great and unexpected was the change from the morning on the river in
the sun and clear air to the evening and the glow of lamps and colour
and the chanted, prayers in this centre of Buddhism, the Mecca of this
far East!

We came out and caught a tram-car home, _i.e._ to the "Java"--an
electric car made in London--Ye gods--the short circuit of ideas!

24th January.--This morning I have to try to paint the groups in the
Arrakan Pagoda, but in the bright daylight it is difficult to take one's
attention from these Phrynes, who come down to bathe beside our
steamer--Phrynes, as to figure I mean. One of the two nearest has a
little white jacket and a tight hunting green cloth skirt and black
velvet sandals; her movements are deliberate, almost languid, and she is
fairly tall, very well proportioned, and when her white jacket comes
off, the colour of her shoulders is very pretty in contrast to the jet
black hair and undergarment of blue. This garment, with its white band
tight across her bust, remains on when the green kirtle drops to her
feet. Her friend is dressed in the same way in different colours. They
walk in and swim a few strokes--if you may call it swimming--with other
women already in the water. Then they wash themselves very carefully
with soap, and when the first comes out in her blue tight garment, she
slips the green kirtle over her head and the blue dress drops off
underneath it. There is no drying--the sun does that, and they are
hardy. A yard or two on this side of them, two men tuck their waist
clothes round their hips and go in with their oxen; both the
yellowy-brown men and the oxen seem to enjoy it, and come out wi