“The object in Pegu that most attracts and most merits notice is the temple of Shoe-ma-doo, or the _Golden Supreme_. This extraordinary edifice is built on a double terrace, one raised above another; the lower and greater terrace is above ten feet above the natural level of the ground; it is quadrangular. The upper and lesser terrace is of a like shape, raised about twenty feet above the lower terrace, or thirty above the level of the country. I judged a side of the lower terrace to be 1,391 feet, of the upper, 684; the walls that sustained the sides of the terraces, both upper and lower, are in a state of ruin; they were formerly covered with plaster, wrought into various figures; the area of the lower is strewed with the fragments of small decayed buildings, but the upper is kept free from filth, and in tolerably good order.... These terraces are ascended by flights of stone steps, broken and neglected; on each side are dwellings of the Rahaans or priests, raised on timbers four or five feet from the ground; their houses consist only of a single hall—the wooden pillars that support them are turned with neatness, the roof is of tile, and the sides of sheathing-boards: there are a number of bare benches in every house, on which the Rahaans sleep—we saw no other furniture. “Shoemadoo is a pyramid, composed of brick, and plastered with fine shell-mortar, without excavation or aperture of any sort, octagonal at the base and spiral at top—each side of the base measures 162 feet; this immense breadth diminishes abruptly, and a similar building has not inaptly been compared to a large speaking-trumpet.