They observe three days of their sixth month with very great veneration as the anniversaries of the birth, the attaining to divinity and the death of Buddha. These three days are a great time for “making merit,” which they think they do by giving to the poor, by making offerings to the priests and to the idols and by listening to prayers and preaching. All classes, young and old, high and low, rich and poor, go to the temple-grounds and make little conical mounds of sand a foot or two high, surmounted with flowers and small flags of all colors. At the beginning of seed-time, generally in May, the time being fixed by astrologers, they have their _Raknah_ holiday, when the minister of agriculture is for the day regarded as king, because he, as the king’s substitute, holds the plough, breaks up the ground and plants the first rice of the year. He is escorted by a public procession to some field, and there the priests, after superstitious ceremonies, decorate a pair of oxen with flowers and fasten them to a plough, which is also trimmed with flowers. The minister then holds the plough while the oxen drag it over the ground for about an hour. Four elderly women from the king’s household scatter rice over the ploughed part of the field, and leave it there uncovered. The oxen are then liberated, and four kinds of the grain that the people most prize are placed before them. Whichever kind they eat much of the people think will be scarce; that of which they eat little or none they think will be abundant throughout the year, and they plant accordingly. They have two holidays every year for _swinging_, when the minister of agriculture is carried by a long procession to a place where there is a high swing between two tall poles. A brick platform covered with white muslin and tastefully curtained has been prepared for him. Attended by four Brahman priests, two on his right hand and two on his left, he ascends this platform and stands on one foot till three games of swinging are ended, which generally occupy two hours. If he ventures to touch his foot once to the floor during the games, it is said the Brahmans are allowed to take all his property from him. The game is to catch in the mouth a purse of money that is suspended within reach of the swinger. When the games are over the swingers sprinkle on all about them water that has been made holy by the priests. This is the Brahmanical mode of calling down blessings on the people of the land. About noon the minister is escorted home by a procession similar to the one that took him there. These ceremonies and games are repeated on the second day. Princes and officers of government and dense crowds of the people are present to witness them.