4. "May our king be continually victorious! When the divine Buddha ascended the golden throne, all created beings inhabiting millions of worlds became his subjects, and he overcame all enemies. So may kings by hundreds and thousands, and tens of thousands, come with offerings of celestial weapons, white elephants, flying horses, virgins, and precious stones of divers sorts, and do homage to the Golden Feet, which resemble the germs of the lotos,--O KING!" Now, even for an exploit in poetical license, that is sublimely cool, considering that a mere yesterday of thirty years has sufficed to strip the Throne of the Golden Foot of dominions which were the gradual acquisition of more than two bloody centuries of drunken lust, and that the dread Lord of Life and Master of the Celestial Weapon well knew that day that he no longer had access to the sea save through many leagues of British territory,--considering that the chronicle of the Burmese kings is one of the bloodiest chapters in the book of Time, a record of hell-engendered monsters, conceived in incest, brought forth in insanity, trained to the very sport of slaughter, and doomed to quick assassination or the most summary deposition and disgrace,--considering that even this "just and humane" Mendoon-men himself had deposed his cock-fighting brother, the Pagán-men, and sacked and burned his capital, and that even now he held him a close prisoner, poor and despised, in a corner of the fortified city,--and finally, that even as that pæan of infatuation ascends to the besotted ears of the King, given up of God to believe lies, his own brother, the Ein-shé-men, possessed of a devil of precedent, crouches like a tiger below the dais, and plots assassination and usurpation in his cunning bit of looking-glass. The chants concluded, the Tara-Thoogyi read from a _parabeik_, or black note-book, an address to the King, stating that the offerings his Majesty purposed making to certain pagodas at the capital were ready. "Let them be dedicated!" said one of the officials solemnly; and the music was renewed. This dedication, the chant of the Brahmins, and the singular ceremony of _A-beit-theit_ (literally, a pouring out of water on a solemn occasion), together constitute the formal inauguration of a royal sitting. Then the Governor-General's letter was drawn from its cover, and read aloud by a Than-daugan, or Receiver of the Royal Voice, who also read the list of presents for the King and Queen. A railway model, contributed by Sir Macdonald Stephenson, was immediately produced and exhibited in the Hall,--the only one of the presents uncovered there,--and excited lively interest among the Burmese. All the readings were intoned in a high recitative, like the English Cathedral service; and the long-drawn "Phrá-á-á-á!" (My Lord!) was delivered like the "Amen" of the Liturgy.