United States or Tajikistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They compare our King to the resplendent Indian sun; "Our King Emperor" begins each stanza with the catch of the stroke, or rather, the dig of the paddle. All the Burmese royal residencies were and are still covered with gilding. Shwey or gold, is also a Burmese term for royalty.
There are besides temples and fanes, many solid bell-shaped pagodas of the Shwey Dagon type. The Ananda Temple is the oldest. It is built in the form of a Greek cross, the outer corridors are a hundred feet. The interior, from descriptions I've read, must be splendidly effective and impressive. We stop at oil works, Yenangyat.
This was since our occupation of Lower Burmah. The priests in their yellow robes, draped like Roman Togas, come and go just like other people; they are greatly reverenced, they teach all the boys of the nation their faith, reading, writing and simple arithmetic, but they do not proselytise or assume spiritual powers, nor do they act in civil affairs, and they "judge not;" they live, or try to live a good life, and to work out each his own salvation, and you may follow their example if you please, but they won't burn you if you do differently or think differently.... If any one wants to have the wrinkles rolled out of his soul let him go and rest in the quiet, and sun, and simple beauty of the Shwey Dagon Pagoda, with its tapering golden spire and the blue sky above.
We stayed a day or two at a lodging in a detached teak villa in a compound which contained native servants, and crows ad nauseum it was dull, stupid and dear, and we were sorry we had not gone to the hotel, and our greatest pleasure was visiting the Shwey Pagoda again, and the greatest unpleasantness was getting on board the British India boat the "Lunka" for Calcutta.
I must come back; on this journey I have already seen so much on the way here some day I will come out direct and paint this one scene, and perhaps one or two in the Shwey Dagon Pagoda "if I'm spaired," as they say in the lowlands, instead of knocking under the table.
Word Of The Day