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Sophia or the Chinese pagoda of a hundred bells; its mighty sermons uttered by steam and water-power; its music the everlasting jar of mechanism and the organ-swell of many waters; scattering the cotton and woollen leaves of its evangel from the wings of steamboats and rail-cars throughout the land; its thousand priests and its thousands of priestesses ministering around their spinning-jenny and powerloom altars, or thronging the long, unshaded streets in the level light of sunset.
There was opportunity for choice, for the house was somewhat over- full of furniture, since besides the original plenishing of the Pagoda, all that was individual property had been sent from Belforest, and this included a great many choice and curious articles, small and great, all indeed that any one cared much about, except the more intrinsically valuable gems of art.
Over knolls and through hollows the little cavalcade jogged steadily, till, mounting a gentle eminence, they wound through a grove of camphor and Flame-of-the-Forest. Above the branches rose the faded lilac shaft of an ancient pagoda, ruinously adorned with young trees and wild shrubs clinging in the cornices. At the foot of this aged fantasy in stone, people were laughing.
The general estimate of deaths through the settlement is at least three hundred and fifty in one day; the natives have been known to sacrifice in one day and at one pagoda, fifty cocks and fifty kids, to appease their angry gods, and, in fact, some of the poor deluded creatures will go with a sword run through their cheeks in the fleshy part, and kept hanging in that position for some days, continually dance backwards and forwards through the different bazars; others have the palms of their hands pierced with a sword; others have their breasts burnt, and others again have an instrument run through their tongue in order to calm the wrath of their offended deities; nor can they, in their opinions, put themselves to sufficient torture.
And when either of us turned his thoughts to home and childhood, what a strange dissimilarity must there not have been in these pictures of the mind when I beheld that old, gray, castled city, high throned above the firth, with the flag of Britain flying, and the red-coat sentry pacing over all; and the man in the next car to me would conjure up some junks and a pagoda and a fort of porcelain, and call it, with the same affection, home.
'What do you want the master for? 'Never tell your tidings, said Vessons, 'till you meet the king. 'Martha! Mrs. Marston stood at the kitchen door in the most splendid of her caps a pagoda of white lace and her voice was, as she afterwards said, 'quite sharp, its mellifluousness being very slightly reduced. Vessons rose, touching his hair. 'What is it, my good man? 'A bit of news, mum.
To Elvira, the change from River Hollow to the Pagoda had been from rustic to gentle life, and thus this reply sounded plausible enough to silence a not much awakened compassion, but she still said, "Why can't I go home? I've nowhere else to go. I could not stay at the Farm," she added in her usual uncomplimentary style. "No, my dear, I should not think of it.
It was at a walled town, with gateways and a pagoda that gave some indication of its former prosperity, prettily situated among the trees on the confines of a plain of remarkable fertility. Near sundown we passed down the one long street, all battered and dismantled, which is all that is left of the old town.
After the troops and seamen had rested for some time, the Burmese were observed issuing from the pagoda in considerable strength, with the evident intention of attacking them. The troops lost not a moment in getting under arms, and the seamen forthwith came on shore.
A great semicircle of light smoke, rising from the trees, showed that the position taken up by Bandoola extended from the river above Kemmendine to the neighbourhood of Rangoon. On the night of the 31st, the troops at the pagoda heard a loud and continuous stir in the forest.
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