representing the Oogandaw hill, on which the Lord Buddha found purchase for his final step to the nat-dewah country. On the first day of the feast, usually about eight o'clock at night, the whole scene being lighted up by the brilliant moon, occasionally rather spoilt by smoky torches and the evil-smelling fumes of open crude-oil lamps, the procession begins. The image of the Teacher of the Law, always represented sitting cross-legged, is mounted on a little carriage, fitted to run on a tramway reaching right up to the top, and is dragged up by means of a rope and a windlass. This is done slowly and in a rather jerky fashion, partly because the apparatus does not admit of greater expedition, but principally to prolong the function as much as possible, so that all the people may see it and greater merit may be gained. Surrounding the Buddha is a great company of worshippers from all the higher seats of the universe, earthly kings in royal dress, the white umbrella borne over their heads, and ministers and pages at hand with trailing robes and gorgeous peacock fans; nat-dewahs and their rulers in rainbow hues, with wings on arm and thigh; byammahs from the thoughtful realms of the upper sky; a glittering throng, all uniting in praise to the Saviour of the World, the chant rising and falling on the night air as they slowly ascend. As a general thing it takes quite an hour to get up. There are many doxologies to be sung, and the performers, all laymen from the town, have paid many rupees for their dresses and want as many people to see their grandeur as possible. Technically, on the first night the image should go no further than the Oogandaw hill, but, as already said, this half-way house very often does not exist at all, and even when it does there is usually no more than half-an-hour's halt, and then the procession goes on to Tawadehntha, the spire-covered platform on the summit. There the gay

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throng gather round the image in the attitude of adoration, and a man with a powerful voice stands behind it and declaims the sermon written down in the sacred books as having been preached on the occasion. The subject is filial piety. “I, the great Sramana, the mightiest of all beings, the teacher of neh'ban and the Law; I, the allpowerful, who by my preaching can lead my mother into the path of salvation and the final deliverance; I, who know all things and have beat down the passions under my feet; even I, with all this can but repay the debt due to one of the breasts that suckled me. What then can man offer in love and gratitude to the mother who nourished him at her breast?"

The sermon takes very much less time than the ascent. There is a Burmese proverb

that is to say, no great evil can befall you when you are assisting, in presence of body, if in no other way, at the exercise of so meritorious a ceremony as the expounding of the Law. Accordingly the great crowd, who have been looking on with much interest at the progress up the taper-lit soung-dan, commence generally to prepare for sleep in the zayats which surround the place where the stage is, or failing accommodation there, curl themselves up as comfortably as may be under the bullock-carts which brought them thither. A still greater proportion, however, gather together in circles to have a gossip, and this talk, accompanied by much smoking and chewing of pickled tea and betel, goes on till far into the night. An excuse for the scant reverence paid to the sermon, to which none but

a few white-haired men and women listen, is, that what part of it is not in Pali is in such sugga-gyee, such a lofty and stilted style of Burmese, that no one can follow it. Accordingly the discourse is hurried through and the performers come down, and after putting off their fine clothes receive the congratulations of their friends. The image remains all night in "Tawadehntha," and the following evening the descent is made with similar ceremonial, and so the dramatic part of the festival is concluded.

But this is very far from being the whole of the proceedings. On both days numerous presents are made to the yahans and offerings to the pagodas, and these are carried round about the town and by circuitous routes to the monasteries, so that the greatest amount of pleasure and publicity may accrue to the donors.

Chief among these offerings are always huge spires, some of them fifty feet high, representing Tawadehntha, and similar to that on the summit of the stage platform. They are made of bamboo covered with pasteboard, glittering with gold and silver paper and painted in many colours, and are carried by ten or twenty men, on long bamboo poles. Round about them dance all the youth of the quarter they are presented by, young men and girls, all in their brightest clothes. In Rangoon scores of these offerings wend their way to the monasteries under the shadow of the great Shway Dagohn.

Mingled up in the procession come white umbrellas, gold umbrellas, lofty bamboo poles with gilt balls quivering and swaying at the top, big pasteboard images of natdewahs, beeloos, princes, and animals, from the crawling turtle to the familiar two-legged (or six-legged, which you please) horse, all of them surrounded by their group of vigorous dancers. Most characteristic of the day are the padaytha-bins, a sort of Turanian Christmas-tree,

representing the fabled wishing-tree of the Northern Island and the heavens of the nats. In those regions the fairy branches bear whatever is wanted, from a savoury ragout to a complete suit of clothes. Upon earth the quivering bamboo twigs carry, dangling by strings, whatever the bazaar shops will supply, packets of scented soap, matchboxes, razors, clasp-knives, little looking-glasses, coloured glass tumblers, candles and dolls; and piled round the roots are heavier and more useful articles-blankets, mats bales of yellow cloth, and earthenware or lacquer beggingbowls. These trees, each with its attendant band of dancers, are carried round and finally deposited before the house of the head of the monastery. Occasionally a ngway padaytha is offered, if the inhabitants of the wealthy districts of the town are particularly pious. This silver padaytha is a tree similar to the rest, except that from its branches hang exclusively rupees and smaller silver coins, each wrapped up in a piece of tinsel or coloured paper. These silver trees, some of which are worth from 500 to 1,000 rupees, are more frequently presented to the pagodas than to the monasteries. In the former case the custodians of the shrine take charge of the money for the purposes of repair and the payment of watchmen; in the latter, the kyoung-thah-gyee, the kappeeya dahyaka, or lay steward of the monastery, receives the money, as indeed he takes the miscellaneous collection from the other wishing-trees, and dispenses all for the benefit of the kyoung and the giving of alms to poor travellers. It is noticeable, however, that the ascetic Soola-gandee monks would altogether refuse to accept such a temptation to break their vows as a silver rupee tree.

Spires and umbrellas, padaytha-bins and hobby-horses, hover about the streets on the way to the monasteries all day long throughout the duration of the festival, and at

night, after the mystery play is over, the bands which have been performing sedulously all day crash out again on the night air, and fragments of plays and songs are to be heard everywhere. Chief among the night amusements too is the presentation of the nagah, the huge serpent-like dragon, a great monster often considerably over a hundred feet long, formed of thin paper, distended on bamboo hoops. Each of these has a handle attached to it and a lighted taper fastened inside, and is carried by a man. The body is white, shading off into a blood-red head and jaws, and as the creature writhes its long folds and twists and darts from side to side of the road, the effect from a distance is very fine and startling on a first view. He plunges and coils about till the candles are nearly burnt out, and then is deposited with other offerings on the pagoda. All through the day and night there are generous people about, ready to give meat and drink, cheroots and betel, to any passer-by who chooses to afford them an opportunity of acquiring merit, for any act of charity accumulates koothoh, even though the object aided be

base.

The offerings to the monks are also not confined to the fruit of the padaytha-bins. On the third day of the feast the image of Shin Gautama is carried away from the bamboo erection and dragged through the town in the early morning, the monks following with their begging pots and receiving the abundant alms prepared for them at the Sohn-daw-gyee feast, which is intimately connected with that of Tawadehntha, and commemorates as much the Lord Buddha's issuing from the neh'ban kyoung at Sampa Thanahgo to beg for his food on his return from the second heaven, as the pious gift of nogana, made after the long fast, by Thoozata.