Early on the morning of the 13th of September, 1855, a most fantastic and picturesque procession--in which the formal and arrogant simplicities of a nice Western civilization, and the grotesque and insolent ostentations of a crude Oriental barbarism, with all the splendid riddles of its far-fetched type-and-symbolry, were blended in a rich bizarreness--formed in the main street of the western suburb of "the Immortal City" of Amarapoora, and moved toward the palace of "him who reigns over the kingdoms of Thunaparanta, Tampadépa, and all the great umbrella-bearing chiefs of the Eastern countries,"--the Lord of Earth and Water, King of the Rising Sun, Lord of the Sacred White Elephant and of all white elephants, Master of the Celestial Weapon, and Great Chief of Life and Righteousness,--called, "for short," Mendoon-men, King of Ava. An imposing deputation of Woons and other grandees, with their respective "tails," were escorting the newly arrived Envoy of the Governor-General of India, and his suite, from their Residency on the south shore of the lake Toung-ah-mah-Eing below the city, to the Hall of the Throne of the Golden Foot, there to have audience of that great, glorious, and most excellent Majesty, whose dominions are bounded only by the imagination--and here and there a British customhouse; and whose excursions of dreadful power are stayed only by the forbearing fiat of Boodh--and now and then some British bayonets. The escort was illustrious: there were the old Nan-ma-dau-Phra Woon, or Lord-Governor of the Queen's Palace; the Woondouk Mhoung Mhon, a minister of the second order in the High Court and Council; and the Tara-Thoogyi, or Chief Judge of Amarapoora; besides other magnificos of less note, but all very fine in their heavy, wide-sleeved court robes of crimson velvet, laced with a broad edging of Benares brocade. On their heads they wore high mitres, also of crimson velvet, curving backward in a volute, and encircled at the base with a coronet of tinsel spear-heads. It is the _ton_ at court to wear these mitres excessively tight, and to carry a little ivory blade, modelled like a shoe-horn, with which the cap of honor is drawn on, and all "vagrom" locks of hair "comprehended." The _tsalwé_ (a Burman badge of nobility, derived from the Brahminical triple cord, and having three, six, nine, or even twelve threads, according to the distinction conferred on the wearer), and a trumpet-shaped ear-tube of gold, complete the official costume. The royal presents from England, guarded by the British-Indian cavalry escort, had been sent forward over a long bridge which spanned the southern end of the Toung-ah-mah, to await on the other side the arrival of the Envoy. There was a superb carriage for the King, which, being too wide to pass the bridge, was towed across the lake on a raft.