e
consist of single tree-trunks of unusual size and great value.

The moat serves to supply Mandalay with its drinking-water, and is fed
by a conduit from the hills. I am afraid the water is not very clean,
but it is a very pretty sight to see the people coming to fill their
jars from the little stages which jut from the banks, while the whole
surface is at some seasons of the year a mass of purple lotus and
white water-lily, and, although in the middle of the city, paddy-birds
and other ibis wade about its margins.

Mandalay is a station for our troops, who are quartered inside the
fort, which was only captured after severe fighting. The stockade,
which offered so great an obstacle to our men, has been swept away,
and "Tommy Atkins," as well as Indian troops, now inhabit the palaces
of King Thebaw's time! But it is an unhealthy station, and nowhere in
Burma have I seen such crowds of mosquitoes, the common cause of fever
in Europeans.

The most beautiful of Mandalay's pagodas, "the Incomparable," has been
destroyed by fire; but a large number remain, one of which is very
interesting. This is the "Kuthodaw," a temple built by Mindon Min,
King Thebaw's father. The central dome is not remarkable, but on each
side of the large flagged space which surrounds it are rows and rows
of miniature temples, each with an ornamental cupola, supported upon
pillars. Each of these 729 cupolas contains a slab of alabaster, on
which is inscribed a chapter of the Pali Bible. The entrance-gates,
also, are large, and unusually ornate in design.

Each quarter of the town has one or more large pagodas, and others
surround its outskirts from the river-bank to the top of Mandalay
Hill; but these differ from the others we have noticed in one respect,
being covered by carved plaster-work, each stage of which is
beautified by some elaborate or striking pattern, so that the dome of
pure white, broken by sharp contrast of light and shade, is quite as
rich in effect as the gilded temples of Rangoon or Prome.

Most remarkable of all the buildings in Mandalay, however, are the
monasteries, of which there are a large number, many of great
interest, the principal one being the "Queen's Golden Monastery," for
beauty of design and elaborate embellishment unquestionably the finest
structure of its kind in Burma.

Across the river from Mandalay is a very pretty scene. Low conical
hills rise from the banks of the river, each crowned by a pagoda,
around