The thehn-nats are certain spirits, or superior beings, who preside over the showers. It rains whenever they come out of their houses (the stars), to sport about and have mimic fights in the air. The thunder and the lightning are the clashing and shining of the celestial arms. When the sun is in the house of the goat it is very hot, and the thehn-nats do not come out. To arouse them from their lethargy, if the rains are long of coming, it is a common custom in country places to have a lohn-swè-thee, a tug of war. A chain or a stout cable is got, and the villages divide themselves into two parties, and pull and shout and get up as much excitement as possible, to stimulate the thehn-nats to exert themselves also. A lohn-swè-thee sometimes continues for nearly an hour without definite result.

The "painted cheeks," or "fragrant cheeks," so frequently mentioned in all these love-songs, refers to the thana'kha, a sweet-scented, straw-coloured powder made from the bark and roots of the Murraya paniculata, a flowering shrub of the citron species. Some girls, and especially some actresses, have particular recipes for making up the cosmetic into a moist paste. It is applied with the finger, and a good deal of skill is exhibited in putting on the requisite amount. Unpractised hands usually smear on far too much, and it cracks and looks unpleasant. On others it is barely visible. All girls use it, and not a few town dandies.

The following may be regarded as somewhat of an approach to the European vers de société. I have not attempted to imitate the original metre:

THE CIGAR-MAIDEN OF MADEYAH, NEAR MANDALAY.

Thy cheroots, so deftly fingered,

Famous are in Burma's land,
Many a chief has fondly lingered,

Watched the maiden's nimble hand.

Madeyah, I'd spare to sing thee

For cheroots and dainty maids,

For their crispness doth but bring thee Sorrow from the palace blades.

By the throne's great gilded grandeur Sits the prince, cheroot in hand, And behind him little Mah Nyo, Pearl of all the village band.

Burnt up all my love and sighing,
Like the ash of his cigar;
Hopes dispelled and idly flying,
Like the smoke he puffs afar.

Thy cheroots so deftly fingered,
Madeyah are silver-white,

But the prince that came and lingered,
Stole away the hamlet's light.

CHAPTER III.

THE TAWADEHNTHA FEAST.

NEXT to the uproarious merriment of the New Year's feast in the spring, the festival of Tawadehntha is probably the most joyous and striking of the Burmese religious ceremonies. It is not of universal observance. Some districts keep it up with much more pomp than others, but are not always equally enthusiastic every year in the way in which they celebrate it. In Rangoon and Mandalay, however, it is carried out regularly with greater or less magnificence, and preparations for the procession and the performance of the mystery play often go on for many months beforehand.

The feast commences on the first of the waning moon of Ta'soungmohn, about the beginning of November, and lasts over three days. It is commemorative of the Lord Buddha's ascent from the earth to preach the Sacred Law to his mother, Maya, then a Queen of dewahs in Tawadehntha, the second nat-heaven. He was staying at the time in the country of Thawattee (probably the place now called Fyzabad), in the Zaytawoon monastery, and thence in three steps compassed the distance to the natheaven, situated above the Myemmoh Toung, the centre

of the universe.1 Arrived in the nat-seat, the Buddha preached a sermon on the duties of filial gratitude, to a vast congregation of byammahs, nat-dewahs, and arahats, and having expounded the Law which was to lead them. into the noble path of deliverance, descended again by a magnificent ladder composed in separate strips of gold, silver, and precious stones, to the neh'ban kyoung, where he received the usual pious offerings of the people on his arrival, on the day of the full moon of Thadingyoot.

To recall this event in the Buddha's life is the object of the feast, and the preparation of the stage often takes considerably over a week, notwithstanding the facility with which bamboo buildings are run up in Burma. A platform is prepared, from twenty to fifty or sixty feet in height, according to the subscriptions and the scale on which it is intended to carry out the performance. Over this is raised a gaily decorated pya-that, the tower-like spire with seven diminishing roofs, characteristic of sacred. buildings, and leading up to it is a sloping way, representing the Soung-dan, the path by which Shin Gautama ascended. Sometimes there is a similar sloping descent. on the other side, figuring the ladder which led down to the monastery in the neighbourhood of Sampa Thanahgo, but more often the ascent and descent are compassed on the same slope, which comes to an abrupt end six or eight feet from the ground, on a level platform, covered by an ordinary roof, if it represents merely the earth, or the sacred pya-that if it does duty also for the neh❜ban kyoung. Half-way up there is sometimes a covered stage,

1 He had just finished a display of miracles on an immense road, constructed by him from one side of the world to the other, before a crowd covering an area of thirty-six yoozanas. The leader of the heretics who challenged the display of wonders, a man named Poorana, was so overcome with chagrin that he tied himself to a weighted jar and was drowned.