em. But there are other
colours, too: there is silver and green embroidery, and there are
shot-silks in purple and orange, and there is dark blue. All the
jackets, or nearly all the jackets, are white with wide sleeves, showing
the arm nearly up to the elbow. Each man has his turban very gay, while
each girl has a bright handkerchief which she drapes as she likes upon
her arm, or carries in her hand. Such a blaze of colour would not look
well with us. Under our dull skies and with our sober lights it would be
too bright; but here it is not so. Everything is tempered by the sun;
it is so brilliant, this sunlight, such a golden flood pouring down and
bathing the whole world, that these colours are only in keeping. Before
them is the gold pagoda, and about them the red lacquer and dark-brown
carving of the shrines.

You hear voices like the murmur of a summer sea, rising and falling,
full of laughter low and sweet, and above is the music of the fairy
bells.

Everything is in keeping--the shining pagoda and the gaily-dressed
people, their voices and the bells, even the great bell far beyond, and
all are so happy.

The feast lasts for seven days; but of these there are three that are
greater, and of these, one, the day of the full moon, is the greatest of
all. On that day the offerings will be most numerous, the crowd densest.
Down below the pagoda are many temporary stalls built, where you can buy
all sorts of fairings, from a baby's jointed doll to a new silk dress;
and there are restaurants where you may obtain refreshments; for the
pagoda is some way from the streets of the city, and on festival days
refreshments are much wanted.

These stalls are always crowded with people buying and selling, or
looking anxiously at the many pretty wares, unable, perhaps, to buy. The
refreshments are usually very simple--rice and curry for supper, and for
little refreshments between whiles there are sugar-cakes and vermicelli,
and other little cates.

The crowd going up and down the steps is like a gorgeous-coloured
flood, crested with white foam, flowing between the dragons of the gate;
and on the platform the crowd is thicker than ever. All day the festival
goes on--the praying, the offering of gifts, the burning of little
candles before the shrines--until the sun sets across the open country
far beyond in gold and crimson glory. But even then there is no pause,
no darkness, for hardly has the sun's last bright shaft faded from