The
Land of the Lord Buddha, where the myriad pagodas lift their
golden flames of worship everywhere, and no idlest wind can pass
but it ruffles the bells below the htees until they send forth
their silver ripple of music to swell the hymn of praise!
There is a little bay on the bank of the flooding river - a
silent, deserted place of sand- dunes and small bills. When a
ship is in sight, some poor folk come and spread out the red
lacquer that helps their scanty subsistence, and the people from
the passing ship land and barter and in a few minutes are gone on
their busy way and silence settles down once more. They neither
know nor care that, near by, a mighty city spread its splendour
for miles along the river bank, that the king known as Lord of
the Golden Palace, The Golden Foot, Lord of the White Elephant,
held his state there with balls of magnificence, obsequious
women, fawning courtiers and all the riot and colour of an
Eastern tyranny. How should they care? Now there are ruins -
ruins, and the cobras slip in and out through the deserted holy
places. They breed their writhing young in the sleeping-chambers
of queens, the tigers mew in the moonlight, and the giant spider,
more terrible than the cobra, strikes with its black poison- claw
and, paralyzing the life of the victim, sucks its brain with
slow, lascivious pleasure.
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