well-set on head, with pretty face and slightly oblique eyes, one
could not forget quickly--it was feline and feminine, and through and
through as a _poignarde ecossaise_. Her sister, Sao Nang Tip Htila, was
the only lady who rode on an elephant at the Delhi Durbar Procession.
She is also known as a clever business woman; at present she rules the
state of Keng Kham during the minority of her son. She lost her jewels
in the Hoogley on the road to Delhi Durbar, and thought that as nothing
to put against the satisfaction of having "shaken hands with the
King-Emperor's brother," the Duke of Connaught, the memory of whose
graciousness is treasured by the Shans to-day.

... G. and I went to the Pagoda and admired. It is the richest colour
I've seen in the world, and, please heaven, let me come back. Otherwise
Rangoon is not so very interesting; there are wide macadamised roads in
the European parts, with large, two-storied villas in dark-brown teak
wood on either side, with handsome trees in their compounds, thousands
of nasty raucous crows, and Indian servants everywhere, and a very few
Burmans. But the Pagoda is almost purely Burmese; a group of
sinister-looking southern Indian natives sometimes passes up or down the
steps in their dirty white draperies, and seem to bring an evil
atmosphere with them, and a band of our clean, sturdy red-necked
soldiers in khaki may go up, flesh and fire-eating sons of Odin, with
fixed glittering bayonets and iron heels clinking on the stone
steps--Gautama forgive us!--but they don't break the picture nearly so
much as the "natives," their frank expression is more akin to the
Burman's, they have not got the keen hungry look of the Indian; or the
challenging expression of some of our own upper classes.

Who can describe the soft beauty of the Pagoda platform--the sun-lit
square at top of the long covered stairway--with its central golden
spire supporting the blue vault of sky, surrounded at its base with
serene golden Buddhas in little temples of intricate carving, in gilded
teak and red lacquer, and coloured glass mosaic, with candles smoking
before them and flowers dying. The square is paved, and round the
outside against graceful trees and palms are more shrines and more
golden-marble Buddhas facing into the square, and some big bells hang on
carved beams, and children strike them occasionally with deers' horns,
half in play, half as a notice to the good spirits that they and their
senior