This service is continued day and night, with only the intervals for the performance of the dirges and mourning women, and a few minutes each hour as the four priests retire and another four come in and take their place. This is kept up from week to week and month to month until the time appointed for burning the corpse has arrived, which may be from two to six or even eight months. The remains of a king are usually kept from eight to twelve months. (In the present case the remains have been kept seventeen months.) In event of the death of a king his successor immediately begins preparations for the _P’ramene_, which is the splendid temporary building under which the body is to sit in state several days on a throne glittering with silver, gold and precious stones, and then and there to be committed to the flames. The building is intended to be in size and grandeur according to the estimation in which the deceased was held. Royal orders are forthwith sent to the governors of four different provinces far away to the north, in which large timber abounds, requiring each of these to furnish one of the four large logs for the centre pillars of the _P’ramene_. These must be of the finest timber, usually the oil tree, very straight, two hundred feet long and proportionately large in circumference, which the writer has observed to be not less than twelve feet. There are always twelve other pillars, a little smaller in size, demanded at the same time from governors of other provinces, as also much other timber needful in the erection of the _P’ramene_ and the numerous buildings connected with it. [Illustration: CREMATION TEMPLE: A TEMPORARY BUILDING.]