But the great sight of the place is the “Incomparable Pagoda,” as the Burmans proudly style it, situated close by the guard-room, and directly facing the beautiful monastery building then used as the officers’ mess. This remarkable structure is a huge pile of building raised upon vast masonry pillars. It measures fully 300 feet in length, is proportionately broad, and rises in the form of a pyramid to such a height as to be visible several miles off. Its sumptuously carved and gilded teak-wood doors, forty-four in number, are quite a sight to see in themselves, as is also the magnificent decorative plaster work all around and over the building, and rising to its very summit. At that time, in the absence of churches and chapels, for want of a better place with sufficient space for hundreds to assemble together, the Hampshire Regiment used to have “church parade” in the vast expanse amongst the pillars at the basement of the Incomparable Pagoda. It was a cool, airy, comfortable place, and open on all sides to the breeze, so that it answered very well in such a hot climate. There also many other meetings were held in those days of “Field Service,” when we had all to be satisfied with such accommodation as we could get. It was there our prayer-meetings and class-meetings were held for the soldiers, and there, amidst that wilderness of pillars, under that vast heathen shrine, we had the joy of directing anxious penitents to the Saviour, and there, too, we held, in company with Major Yates of the Royal Artillery, the first temperance meeting ever held in Mandalay. Leaving this Bethel of ours at the basement of the Incomparable Pagoda, and ascending by one of the fine broad flights of steps, the visitor comes to the wooden platform of the pagoda, and on being ushered in by the polite old abbot or presiding monk, he sees a very fine, spacious building, very lofty, with many images of Buddha, sheltered under great white canopies, besides some curiosities of European manufacture, such as mirrors of vast size, and gigantic coloured glass chandeliers, that must have been imported at immense cost. But _the_ sight of the place is the hall which contains the marvellous wood carvings in relief, all of Burmese workmanship, representing most clearly all manner of sacred histories and incidents, the whole of this elaborate and ingenious work being overlaid with gold leaf. Truly Mandalay is a wonderful place for religious buildings.