Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
The principal attraction to the traveler in Madura, which contains some fifty thousand inhabitants, is a remarkable and ancient pagoda, supported by two thousand stone columns. It was dedicated to Parvati, wife of Shiva, and is one of the largest and finest monuments of Hindoo art in existence, covering in all its divisions, courts, shrines, colonnades, and tanks twenty acres of ground.
Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one room to the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the courtyard and two on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of these windows to make an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick which extended from the salon towards the river, ending in a horrible Chinese pagoda.
Starting and looking round for some impertinent street boy, Mr. Ogilvie exclaimed, "What's that?" "Mother Carey! We are all Mother Carey's chickens." "See, there," exclaimed Mary, and a great parrot was visible on the branch of a sumach, which stretched over the railings of the low wall of the pagoda garden. "O you appropriate bird, -you surely ought not to be here!"
The pagoda, whose minarets loomed above the trees in the deepening dusk, stood a hundred steps away. "Come!" whispered the guide. He slipped more cautiously than ever through the brush, followed by his companions; the silence around was only broken by the low murmuring of the wind among the branches. Soon the Parsee stopped on the borders of the glade, which was lit up by the torches.
In architecture, too, Indian and Tibetan influence was felt in this period. The Tibetan pagodas came into special prominence alongside the previously known form of pagoda, which has many storeys, growing smaller as they go upward; these towers originally contained relics of Buddha and his disciples.
The great pagoda is of conical shape and is divided into twelve parts, and of these the ti, or umbrella, valued at £60,000, is the most costly and remarkable, and was the gift of King Mindon, the next to the last king of Burma. While from its great height it is scarcely visible, it is really thirteen and one-half feet high and is hung with about fifteen hundred bells, many of them gold.
So being satisfied that he should be reimbursed for his pagoda, and fortifying himself with a glass or two of his own wine, he yielded to Tarleton's desire, and told us his history. I believe it was very entertaining to the good barber, but Tarleton and I saw nothing extraordinary in it; and long before it was over, we wished him an excellent good day, and a new race of Chinese monsters.
Cool and sunny in the morning, the river violet, and the sun faint yellow through wisps of rising mist. We are coming to a village on the bank, palms and trees behind it, and a white pagoda spire rising from them, and one in gold above the village. The cottage roofs are of shingle, buff-coloured and grey, with a silvery sheen.
Presently Me Dain pointed forward and said, "Here we are," and they saw the slender spire of a pagoda dart above the low trees ahead. A few steps again carried them from the forest path they were following to a narrow track deeply printed with the hoof-marks of cattle. "Here's the village highway," said Buck, and the Burman looked back and grinned and nodded.
So being satisfied that he should be reimbursed for his pagoda, and fortifying himself with a glass or two of his own wine, he yielded to Tarleton's desire, and told us his history. I believe it was very entertaining to the good barber, but Tarleton and I saw nothing extraordinary in it; and long before it was over, we wished him an excellent good day, and a new race of Chinese monsters.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking