t to us
persuasively to buy from them. On the whole the place is clean, and
there is no bazaar smell, only a certain sharp wood-smoke flavour and
the scent of many flowers. But at the foot of every white column are
horrible deep-red stains that look as if some little animal had been
slaughtered there. It is not so bad as that. You remember we saw a man
whose mouth was stained red with chewing betel-nut, which he did in the
same way that some of the roughest men in England chew tobacco? These
are the stains of that betel-nut, for nearly everyone here has the
nasty habit.

Up the steps we pass, higher and higher, and come out on to a great
platform which looks like a street, for it is lined with buildings on
all four sides and in the middle too; but rising above those in the
middle is the great pagoda, the Shwe Dagon,--_shwe_ means golden,--and
this is the most wonderful thing in Burma.

It is so wide at the base that it takes quite a long time to walk round
it, and then it goes up in a bell-like curve, tapering to a steeple
little less than the height of St. Paul's Cathedral. At the very top of
all, so high that we can only see it by cricking our necks, is an iron
cage called a _htee_, meaning "umbrella," decorated with swinging bells.
Listen for a moment and perhaps you can hear them as the wind sways them
about. No, the air is too still to-day. Deep in the innermost chamber of
the pagoda are no less than eight hairs of Buddha, besides other relics
of other Buddhas who lived before the last.

The marvel of it is that this great monument is pure gold from top to
bottom. Much of it is covered with thin plates of real gold, and the
rest, yards and yards of it, is plastered with gold-leaf.

Did you see that red glint from the top as the sun caught the htee at an
angle? That was probably a real ruby, for it flashed out like a sword
blade. There are many real stones set up there, and the htee alone cost
L50,000!

Coming back to earth, look at the glitter on all these shrines that line
the platform on both sides. Though it looks like a street it isn't
really, for there are no houses, only shrines and temples. That one
close to us is dazzling to look at. No, those blue and red flashes are
not from real jewels; examine them and see. The shrine is encased with
little pieces of looking-glass, some red and some blue and some plain,
all fitted in together like mosaic.

The next is made of the wonderful carved woodwork the Bur