“Built on the left bank of the river, by the great Alompra, in commemoration of his victories, Yangoon, or Rangoon, offers but a very poor sample of Burman opulence. Its shape is oval, and round the town is a wooden stockade, formed of teak piles, driven a few feet into the ground, and in some places twenty feet high. The tops of these are joined by beams transversely placed, and at every four feet is an embrasure on the summit of the walls, which gives it a good deal the appearance of an ancient fortification. A wet ditch protects the town on three sides, the other is on the bank of the river. “The interior consists of four principal streets, intersecting each at right angles, on the sides of which are ranged, with a tolerable degree of regularity, the huts of the inhabitants. These are solely built with mats and bamboos, not a nail being employed in their formation: they are raised invariably two or three feet from the ground, or rather swamp, in which Rangoon is situated, thereby allowing a free passage for the water with which the town is inundated after a shower, and at the same time affording shelter to fowls, ducks, pigs, and pariah dogs, an assemblage which, added to the inmates of the house, place it on a par with an Irish hovel. The few brick houses to be seen are the property of foreigners, who are not restricted in the choice of materials for building, whereas the Burmans are, on the supposition that were they to build brick houses, they might become points of resistance against the government. But even these buildings are erected so very badly, that they have more the appearance of prisons than habitations. Strong iron bars usurp the place of windows, and the only communication between the upper and lower stories is by means of wooden steps placed outside. Only two wooden houses existed much superior to the rest, and these were the palace of the Maywoon, and the Rondaye, or Hall of Justice. The former of these, an old dilapidated building, would have been discreditable as a barn in England, and the latter was as bad.... Two miles north of Rangoon, on the highest point of a low range of hills, stands the stupendous pagoda, called the Shoe Dagon Prah, or Golden Dagon.... It is encircled by two brick terraces, one above the other; and on the summit rises the splendid pagoda, covered with gilding, and dazzling the eyes by the reflection of the rays of the sun. The ascent to the upper terrace is by a flight of stone steps, protected from the weather by an ornamented roof. The sides are defended by a balustrade, representing a huge crocodile, the jaws of which are supported by two colossal figures of a male and female Pulloo, or evil genius, who, with clubs in their hands, are emblematically supposed to be guarding the entrance of the temple. On the steps the Burmans had placed two guns, to enfilade the road; and, when I first saw this spot, two British soldiers were mounting guard over them, and