The long flight of pillars, in vermilion and gold,
leads from the crouching gryphons to the last step
and flagged pavement of the temple, making a vista
of striking beauty ; and up and down this avenue, lit
with the slant rays of the sun, the worshippers pass
with flowers in their hands, cheroots at their lips, and
piety on their faces. Two lads with a clanging bell
hung from a pole ; children who can scarcely compass
the width of the stairs ; groups of laughing girls ; old
men trembling in their limbs— of such is the ascending
and descending throng. Under the vermilion columns
sit the beggars and lepers of Prome. Here is one,
a woman hideously disfigured, with a child on her
knees, whose face is yet unscarred by the fell disease.
And there are others, upon whose faces there is the
look of men to whom life has nothing left to offer.
Intellect, will, hope, all have gone, and only the sad
mortal disfigured husk remains. These poor creatures
sit here, a piece of rag or a broken bowl spread before
them, too weary of life to make any other appeal than that
which is involved in their presence, to the passers-by.
On the platform all is beautiful. Under the tazoung
at the summit of the stairs, a party of women is kneeling,
their figures cut in dark outline against the blaze of
gold beyond. All round the central fane, which towers
eighty feet into the air, the worshippers are assembled :
little children with flowers in their hands and faces
solemn as they can make them ; women in silken skirts
bowing low before the object of their adoration ; men,
silently turning their beads, or praying with loud voices.
270
iSSi