crests rise up between the sky and the Irrawaddy plain.
The pathway, proceeding along the eastern face of
precipitous cliffs, brings me at last within sight of the
pagoda, poised on the utmost summit of the hills.
The pagoda, built by Anawrata the Great, King of
Pagan, is worthy of its builder and of its site. Its
rounded outline, of a lustrous white* culminates in a
golden spire, and the dark winged roofs of monasteries
cluster about its feet. Its intrinsic size is enhanced by
knowledge of the task involved in its construction here,
far from all human resources. The long climb to it is
extravagantly repaid by the noble view that expands
from its platform.
THE PAGODA
In the east, below it, there are the crumpled spurs of
. the mountain, with villages cheerily embowered amongst
trees, and green fields in the valley openings ; then a
blue ribbon of water, followed by alluvial flats left bare
by the falling river. They are green now, with red
patches where fields are being sown. Here and there
on their vast surface, a hamlet, lifted a fraction above
the water-level, maintains its insignificant existence.
Beyond lies the main volume of the river under the
mighty plain of Pagan. Its dark and white pagodas
rise up, each one clearly visible ; and from here, if anywhere,
one may form a just estimate of the greatness
of the ancient city. The Tawni hills beyond make a
red ruffled line across the plain, and above them, in
the extreme east, there towers volcanic Popa, whose
great size can only be justly gauged from a neighbour
such as.this. The hills of Mingyan and Monywa appear
on the northern horizon, where the river in loops reaches
^way into misty space.
As the sun sets, the pagoda-crowned peak sends its
fflighty shadow over the plain, and the spires of the
dead city flame for the last time in the fading light.
In the: west, the crumpled hills reach away over low
Undulating lands to the meridian""chains of the Yoma
Daung, and the still loftier summit of Mount Victoria,
ten thousand feet above the sea. The Yaw river make's
its way through the landscape, a river of gold in the
flooding sunset.
Stone umbrellas fixed upon the backs of elephants
ornament the platform of the pagoda, bells: hang
there from carved posts, flamboyant roofs surmount
the southern stairs; under the dark tazoungs there
are colossal monk’s-bowls of grey marble; a stone