[Illustration: FUNERAL PROCESSION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST.] On the night before the last day of the festival, the coffin is removed from the car and placed on the funeral pyre, on an iron grating, under which is a quantity of wood, made more combustible by the use of oil, resin and the like, mixed with fragrant woods. Early on the day appointed for the burning of the pongyee’s body, parties come from the different villages, bringing rude rockets of every size. Some are a foot long and an inch in calibre; others are monsters, nine and twelve feet in length, and have a bore of six to nine inches diameter. All are crammed to the muzzles with gunpowder, the tubes being hollowed logs of wood strongly bound with cane. The larger ones are placed on rude cars with four wheels, while the smallest are hung on long guiding lines of cane, or rope, fastened at one end to a strong post, and at the other to some point of the funeral pyre. The object is to strike the pyre with the rocket, and fire the combustibles placed inside. Happy will be the village which owns the fortunate rocket, and great their prosperity during the ensuing year. All being ready, men of each village are allowed to go up in rotation and discharge their weapon. The smoke, the flame, the roar is tremendous, to the intense delight of the shouting crowd. One at length strikes as it seems with full power: a pause, a little smoke, then a little flame issues from one corner of the pyre, and a shout from thousands of throats proclaims the auspicious event. The crowd rushes forward, fire is carefully applied to the mass of combustibles under and around the coffin, and soon the whole is in a blaze. The people watch round, giving a cheer as each small pinnacle falls in, and wait, anxiously looking for the lofty canopy itself to topple over into the flames. This event is greeted with a tremendous shout, and then all disperse homewards, happy and merry. A few elders remain to watch the burning pyre till all is consumed, and the next day the monks of the monastery collect the fragments of half-burnt bones and the ashes of the deceased, and reverently inter them in some fitting place, and, perhaps, a small pagoda is erected over them as a monument. Such is Buddhism in Burmah. American missionaries have won many of the Burmese, as of the Karens also, from these ceremonies to the Christian faith. CHAPTER XXXI. SIAM. The “Castle of Indra,” call they the hall, In which are displayed the deities all, The golden images, chiseled with care, And all incrusted with jewels so rare. Full thirty thousand their numbers are: Their ugliness passes description far; A compound of men and animals dread, With many a hand and many a head. HEINRICH HEINE.