rather like a fragment of what we might conceive the architecture of the moon than anything terrestrial." "But the predominant and characteristic form is that of the cruciform vaulted temple." This is the substantial type of the temples at Pagan.

"The body of the buildings was cubical in form, enclosing a Gothic vaulted chamber. The entrance was by a projecting porch to the east, and this porch had also a subsidiary door on its north and south sides. There were also slightlyprojecting door-places on the three other sides of the main building, sometimes blank, and sometimes real entrances. The plan of the building, it will be seen, was cruciform. Several terraces rose successively above the body of the temple, and from the highest terrace rose a spire, bearing a strong general resemblance to that of the common temples of Eastern India, being, like the latter, a tall pyramid, with bulging sides. The angles of this spire were marked as quoins, with deep joints, and a little apex at the projecting angle of each, which gave a peculiar serrated appearance to the outline when seen against the sky.

The buildings were entirely of brick; the ornamental mouldings still partially remained in plaster. The interior of each temple contained an image of Guatama, or its remains. The walls and vaults were plastered, and had been highly decorated with minute frescopaintings."

The finest and most perfect of the type is the Ananda, and which is still the most frequented as a place of worship. It illustrates an architecture so beautiful and so singular, "so sublime even in its effects," that we cannot forbear transferring the author's description of it, though full justice could not be done to it without the exquisite drawing and plans, which place it before the eye in all its completeness and all its details.

"This temple is said to have been built in the reign of Kyan-yeet-tha, about the time of the Norman conquest of England. Tradition has it that five Rahandas, or saints of the order second only to a Buddha, arrived at Pagan from the Hema-woonda, or Himalayan region. They stated that they lived in caves on the Nanda-moola hill, and the king requested them to give him a model of their abode, from which he might construct a temple. The Rabandas did

as they were requested. The temple, being built, was called Nanda-tsee-goon, or caves of Nanda.

"The Ananda is in plan a square of nearly 200 feet to the side, and broken on each side by the projection of large plan into a perfect Greek cross. gabled vestibules, which convert the These

vestibules are somewhat lower than the square mass of the building, which elevates itself to a height of thirty-five feet in two tiers of windows. Above this rise six successively diminishing terraces, connected by carved converging roofs, the last terrace just affording breadth for the spire, which crowns and completes the edifice. The lower half of this spire is the bulging, mitre-like pyramid, adapted from the temples of India; the upper half is the same moulded taper pinnacle that terminates the common bell-shaped pagoda of Pegu. The gilded htee caps the whole, at a height of 168 feet above the ground. The building, internally, consists of two concentric and lofty corridors, communicating by passages for light opposite the windows, and by larger openings to the four porches. Opposite each of these latter, and receding from the inner corridor towards the centre of the building, is a cell or chamber for an idol. In each this idol is a colossal standing figure, upwards of thirty feet in height. They vary slightly in size and gesture, but all are in attitudes of prayer, preaching, or benediction. Each stands facing the porch and entrance, on a great carved lotus pedestal, within rails, like the chancel-rails of an English church. There are gates to each of these chambers-noble frames of timber-rising to a height of four-and-twenty feet. The frame-bars are nearly a foot in thickness, and richly carved on the surface in undercut foliage; the panels are of lattice-work, each intersection of the lattice marked with a gilt rosette.

"The lighting of these image-chambers is, perhaps, the most singular feature of the whole. The lofty vault, nearly fifty feet high, in which stands the idol, canopied by a balance of gilt metal curiously wrought, reaches up into the second terrace of the upper structure, and a window pierced in this sends a light from far above the spectator's head, and from an unseen source, upon the head and shoulders of the great gilded image. This unexpected and partial illumination in the dim recesses of these vaulted corridors, produces a very powerful and strange effect, especially on the north side, where the front light through the great doorway is entirely

subdued by the roofs of the covered approach from the monastic establishments. The four great statues represent the Buddhas who have appeared in the present world-period."

Another great feature in the art and religion also of Burmah, is the number of monasteries or kyoungs which are seen everywhere in connection with the temples. These exhibit even a greater richness of ornamentation and detail, and the most perfect of them, afterwards seen at Amarapoora, seemed actually to overwhelm and dazzle the sight with the multiplicity and elaboration of the ornaments. One is spoken of as "carved like an ivory toy, and being a blaze of gold and other ornament." "In the precincts of the Ananda was a large group of these kyoungs or monastic buildings, forming a street of some length. These, in beauty of detail and combination, were admirable; the wood-carving was rich and effective beyond description; great fancy was displayed in the fantastic figures of warriors, dancers, náts, and bilus (ogres), in high relief, that filled the angles and niches of the sculptured surfaces. The fretted pinnacles of the ridge-ornaments were topped with birds cut in profile, in every attitude of sleeping, picking, stalking, or taking wing."

The Burmese architecture is itself a study the material is the "kucha pukka" work, "that is, brick cemented with mud only;" and the style is one peculiar and striking, combining as it does solidity of structure with the beauty and grotesqueness of detail, and being withal religious and solemn, as well as gorgeous. The principle of the construction is a representation of the cave, a favourite style of building among the Burmese for depositing images, and not a wonderful one among votaries of a religion which regards an ascetic life in the wilderness as the highest state for mortals in this world." But this is so covered with the forms and ornaments belonging to other religions or other styles, that the original idea, if not lost, is at any rate confused by the beauty and brilliancy of the exterior, and the variety of designs superadded on the gloom and coldness of the cave idea. It would seem at first to have most affinity with the Indian;

but this, on a careful comparison, applies only to the details, and not the construction; "for the arches and vaults which are such marked features in the Pagan temples, are quite unknown to ancient Hindoo architecture." In the religious expression, too, they differ. "The Burman, rejecting indeed, in the pride of his philosophy, the idea of an Eternal Divinity, but recognising the eternal sanctities of nature and conscience, has reared nobler fancies, and far more worthy to become the temples of the true God, than the Hindoo, with those his deities so numerous and impure." And then again: "The arches and semi-arches resting on regular pilasters, with base, capital, and cornice, the singular resemblance and in many of the details of mouldof which, both in general character ings, to the pilasters of Roman architecture, is startling, perplexing, and unaccountable,"-induced with some the theory that these temples must have owed their origin to the skill of a Western Christian or missionary, who may have adopted largely the ornamentation of the Burmese, and engrafted much of their detail and arrangement on his own ideas of a temple, and that the cross-like plan was thus symbolical. Our author, too, again and again remarks how singularly these buildings, especially "the Ananda, suggest strange_memories of the temples of southern Catholic Europe." Assuredly in the descriptions we recognise touches of the Gothic character; and ever and anon, as we looked on the pictures, so gorgeous in ornamentation, and so quaint in many of the details, there would float across our vision shadows and recollections of those strange and long-hidden temples in Central America.

It is, however, unjust, and apparently irrational, to be always attempting to reduce the art or style of a people to some known and recognised standard; most of the symbols and designs which are adopted by man in the expression of his worship, are such as are generally recognisable in some shape amid the generality of tribes and nations, and their presence would argue nothing more than the common heart and

feelings which are in man. It would seem hard to rob the Burman of the glory which the conception of these structures must attach to his age of civilisation, by regarding them as the copies and imitations of other types and other ideas than his own. There would seem no doubt that he borrowed much of his detail from the Hindoo, to whom he was doubtless indebted for much also of his culture; but the great principle of the construction, especially as it harmonises well with the phase of Buddhism which he had accepted as his religion, was doubtless his own, modified probably by contact, and by the traditions of the two races from whom he sprang.

It is much easier to believe that "the Burmans of those days were very different from the Burmans of the present," and that the magnificence and taste of the age in which these edifices were created have died away, than that their designs were due to the skill of Christian missionaries or foreign art. No one dreams, because the Greek of to-day is not the Greek of the past, that the Parthenon was therefore an importation, or the production of a stranger race.

The men, however, who could attain such " an actual sublimity of architectural effect, which excites wonder, almost awe, and could leave behind them such an evidence of combined power and exertion," must have achieved a civilisation which made them of some importance in the world's history, and have left a past rich in records of grandeur and achievement. Some such records may yet be explored; and if none other should exist than these temples, they alone would present a ate of knowledge and research to ths who delight to trace in man's works the analogies of races, and the ps of nations and peoples.

From the city of the past we pass on to the city of the present, the seat of the Burmese monarchy, Amarap. This capital is associated with the destiny of the reigning dynasty It was founded by a descendant of Alompra, and has since been, with a short interruption, the residence of the race. The royalty of Burmah had moved gradually, era

of

after era, up the Irawadi, from Prome to Pagan, from Pagan to Panya, from Panya to Ava, from Ava to Amarapoora-ever retreating from the sea, ever holding by the river. "This city stands on slightly elevated ground, which in the flood season forms a long peninsula, communicating with the mainland naturally only at the northern end. Walled embankments and wooden bridges, some of them extraordinary length, connect the peninsula with the country to the eastward, southward, and southwestward. On the north-west side runs a wide creek from the Irawadi. The city, however, except in the high floods, is accessible from the present main stream of the river only near the extremity of the western suburb." The city proper of Amarapoora is laid out four-square at the widest part of the peninsula, and is bounded by a defensive wall of brick, about twelve or thirteen feet high, with a battlemented parapet. The four sides are each a little short of a mile in length, and are exactly alike, excepting that at the north-west, where the river channel comes close under the walls, the angle of the square has been cut off obliquely. Each side has three gates and from eleven to thirteen bastions, including those through which the gates are cut. The palace occupies the centre, its walls being laid symmetrically with those of the city, and has three successive enclosures, with a high palisade of teak posts outside. "The four-square city, with the palace in the centre, is the characteristic form of the old Burman cities, and has perhaps a mythic origin." Within the defences the streets are laid out parallel to the four walls, running from gate to gate, and cutting up the city into rectangular blocks. The houses of the princes, the ministers of state, and other dignitaries, generally occupy the areas within the blocks into which the rectangular streets divide the town. The city of the people differed from the city of the state.

"There were no brick buildings within the walls, except the temples, and the few in the palace. The streets are very wide, and in dry weather are tolerably clean. They are always free from the

closeness and offensive smells of most Indian towns. There are, however, no public arrangements or regulations for street-cleaning, and the dogs are the only scavengers. There is no attempt at drainage, and consequently in wet weather the streets are deep in mire, and some of the lower parts of the city are absolutely swamped. Large unoccupied spaces still exist within the walls, and the population is nowhere dense. The great majority of the houses are mere bamboo cottages, slightly raised from the ground on posts along all the chief streets. At the distance of a few feet from the house front, on each side, runs a line of posts and neat lattice hurdles or palings, which are left whitewashed. The posts are crowned with plants in flower-pots, and between the houses and the palings there are often a few flowering-shrubs. This arrangement is called Yaga-más, or king's fence, and is supposed to be put up whenever the king is likely to pass, in order to prevent the crowd from encroaching on him disrespectfully. Indeed, they are expected not to stare on him, for in Burmah the right of a cat to look on a king

is not well established. This latticefence gives a tidy appearance to the streets, but, concealing the shops and their contents (always the most interesting subjects of curiosity in a foreign city), it destroys all picturesque variety, and gives the town an aspect of monotony and depopulation. The passages of the most frequented gates are fa

vourite stations for the stalls of the staple articles, with the addition of all sorts of small wares, such as pán-boxes, copper spoons, scissors, little pictures, ear-tubes of coloured glass and metal, steatite pencils, strike-lights, &c. Berths for similar goods are ranged against the corners of the palace palisade, and at the very gate of the palace is the principal mart for the stationers who deal in the para beiks (or black books) and steatite pencils, which form the only ordinary writing of the Burmese in their common transactions."

A larger and denser population occupies the western suburb, and here are the foreigners, the Mussulmans of India, the Chinese, stray Europeans, and Armenians, who come for trade and traffic; and in this foreign quarter brick houses are more common, especially among the Chinese, with whom it is a particular vanity. Amarapoora represents the present, as the ruins of Pagan may record the past of Burmah. The pic

ture is not inviting-the contrast betwixt the state quarters and the residences of the people, betwixt the richly decorated monasteries and the bamboo huts, the absence of intermediate dwellings, the fencing-out of the commonalty, the want of bustle and picturesqueness in the marts, all mark a stagnation of life, a deficiency of the elements of progress and the movement of society which would promise a fair and hopeful future for the kingdom and the people. The State absorbs the whole of note or mark, and the commonalty sinks into the shade.

As we have said before, we cannot but regret that there was not attached to the mission some street philosopher,-one who had an eye for man, who had nought to do with the science or the etiquette of the mission, and who was free to move up and down in the towns and cities, gathering traits of life and character. From such an one we might have had other and perhaps brighter views of the qualities and capabilities of the Burmese as a people.

The national picture would be very incomplete without the introduction of the royalty and the court, such very chief elements in the world of Burmah. They are very fully and elaborately portrayed by our author.

The main and ostensible object of the mission was an audience with the sovereign, for the purpose of obtaining a treaty guaranteeing certain privileges.

After many days of tiresome discussion, vexatious delays, and wranglings, as to the etiquette to be observed on the occasion-whether the Governor's letter was to be carried under a canopy, or not-whether the members of the mission were to take off their shoes at this place or thattrifles to us, but matters of moment in Eastern intercourse-the day for the important ceremonial was fixed. The abode of the Embassy was separated from the city by a lake.

"The passage of this was rather a brilliant scene. The jolly-boats of the steamers led the way, with the men of the 84th; the Governor-General's letter followed in the Zembia's gig, with the Company's jack flying at the bow; the officers of the mission in other gigs and

cutters; and a gilt war-boat carrying the envoy and the woons, with Burman oarsmen rowing to a wild chant. The background of the picture was formed by the white spire and pinnacles of a temple, with a surrounding grove of noble cotton-trees and tall palmyras; the Burmese soldiers of the guard and crowds of villagers lining the banks of the lake, whilst behind all rose the manifold ranges of the Shan Mountains. . . The route lay to the western central gate of the city. For the whole distance the way was lined with troops. All sorts of persons had been pressed into the service, peasants, old men, and boys; but the essential point was the exhibition of a store of muskets. At each cross-street stood elephants carrying officers (as they seemed to be)-men in gilt mambrino hats and mountebank costumes, exactly like the histrionic princes in the theatres at Magwe and elsewhere, decked out with triple buckram caps, and shoulderlappets, and paltry embroidery. Many of the soldiers carried green leaves or flowers in the muzzles of their pieces. Crowds of spectators, among whom more than half were women, peeped through the white lattices that line the principal streets, and thronged in denser masses at the crossstreets, all silent, or nearly so... Among the spectators were some comely women and many tastefully dressed, and with pleasant sensible expression, though generally disfigured by a care worn aspect, or by a prominently bad mouth." On the procession was paraded half round the city, and then through streets deluged with water, and lined with soldiers, providentially furnished with little stools or platforms of bamboo, to keep them out of the mud (a precaution of discipline worthy of a soldier of Mahon), on through the "royal gate of the chosen ;" and after another debate as to skikhoeing, and shoes or no shoes, to the hall of audience, and there, seated upon the carpet, with their legs doubled up behind them, the mission awaited to present themselves "at the golden feet."

"The long wings of this hall formed, as it were, the transepts of a cathedral; in front of us ran back a central wall Fike the choir: and in the position of the altar stood the throne under a detached roof, which, in fact, formed the many-storied spire conspicuous from all sides of the city. The central space was bounded by tall columns, lackered and picked out in red towards their bases.

Other rows of columns ran along the transepts. The whole, except the red bases of the columns, was a blaze of gilding. One high step, and four of less size, ascended to the dais on which stood the throne. This was in character exactly like the more adorned seats of Guatama in the temples, and like that from which the High Poongyi preaches. Its form is peculiar, contracting, by a gradation of steps, from the base upwards to mid-height, and again expanding to the top. The top of the throne was mattressed with crimson velvet, and at one side was an elbow-chair for the king. A carved doorway, closed by gilded lattice-doors, led from behind to the top level of the throne. The material of the throne was a sort of mosaic of gold, silver, and mirror-work. A few small figures occupied niches in the central band. These were said to represent the progenitors of the human race. In front of it, on the edge of the steps, stood five fine-gilded shafts, with small gilded labels or scrolls attached to them. These are also royal emblems. On each side of the dais were railed recesses like pews, and along the walls, which run right and left in rear of the throne, were rows of expanded white umbrellas, fringed with muslin valances. The centre aisle in front was occupied by a double row of young princes in surcoats of silver and gold brocade, with gay silk putsos. Farther forward, near the steps of the dais, and between two pillars on our right, the Ein-she-men, or heir, was seated in a sort of couch or carved litter, scarcely raised above the ground.”

There and thus sat the mission, with the Governor-General's letter on a gilt stool before them, partaking, in uneasy and uncomfortable attitudes, of refreshments from "little gilt stands containing trays of tobacco, pawn and klafet, or pickled tea, and other curious confections, neatly set out in golden cups or saucers, and accompanied by water-goblets and gold drinking-cups," which were liberally handed around.

"At last the king's approach was announced by music, sounding, as it appeared, from some inner court of the palace. A body of musketeers entered from the verandas in rear of the throne, and, passing forward, took their places between the pillars on each side of the centre aisle, kneeling down with their muskets between their knees, and their hands clasped before them in attitude of prayer. As the last man entered, the golden-lattice doors behind the throne