partridge calls, and the hare finds a shelter for her young.
The roadways are choked with tropical thickets ! A great
view spreads away, over the heads of the dark palmyras
and dense woods, to the cloud-embattled horizon. The
river, very broad, lies at one’s feet, trailing away in
the south to the spurs of the Pegu hills and the ram
of Akouk-taung. One can look over the crest of the
opposite hills, patterned with orchards, to the distant
blue of the Aracan Yoma. A fresh air, of which
there is no hint down among the tenements, blows
about the summits, and one realises that here, if anywhere
in Prome, is the place to live. The prospect
is so cheerful and beautiful, that every one who comes
to Prome should climb up here to look upon it. The
traveller along the river levels, beautiful as they are,
can form no idea of the world that expands from
every one of the multitudinous peaks that crown the
valley of the Irrawaddy.
Half-way down the hill on the further side, under
the spreading boughs of a bombax, there is an open
zayat which affords exquisite little glimpses of blue
water and mountains. Here pious elders come to
meditate, turning their rosaries by the hour. The
Burman’s love for nature is not to be learnt from his
writings or his words; but from his choice of beautiful
places like this, in which to pray and ponder on the
transitoriness of life. On a neighbouring hill stands
the most beautiful object in Prome, the Shway San
Daw Pagoda.
There are four approaches to it, on the north,
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