-*> 7 he Road to Pagan
As we near Yenan-gyat there become visible, for
the first time, the countless pyramids and spires of
Pagan, the most stately capital Burma has ever known.
The nearer ones are cut in dark outlines against the
sky ; the most distant are so faint that they seem like
the unreal fabrics of a city of dreams. Yet there is
nothing in this superb picture, in all these hosts of
pinnacles and domes and spires, to hint that before
one there lies a city of the dead. Instead, it looks,
hung here between the drowsy clouds and the mirror-
like calm of the mighty river, like- some new Venice
of the East, destined to play an immortal part in the
history o f the world. There is no one who would
judge, from here, that seven hundred years have passed
since its day was closed— for ever.
