All the merit-makers before indulging in the fun of the fair, first buy a bit of gold-leaf, a few wax flowers, or a tiny candle, then mount the steep and broken steps, kneel in front of the shrine, stick their gold-leaf on the iron railings, light their candles and fix them on iron spikes, and throw their waxen blossoms into a blazing bonfire. The visitor to the summit looks down upon a ring of twinkling lights, beyond which lies the deep darkness. The air is full of many sounds. A native band discourses native airs with customary vigour in front of the shrine itself; a military band plays operatic selections in a band-stand half way up the hill; and the devotees bang the big deep-toned bells with more force than is demanded by purely religious feeling. Up from the crowd below comes the roar of hundreds of human voices, the cries of the cheap jacks and lottery owners, and the shouts of the men with the shows, all telling of the animation and excitement that exists amongst the dark-looking figures that ever move, but never leave a vacant spot in the brilliant torch-lit avenues and passages. The priests sit in long pavilions, their yellow robes and shaven heads set off by the red and white draperies of their temporary resting-places. They drink tea and chew betel-nut incessantly, chatter and laugh with animation, and evidently enjoy the fun quite as much as any of their lay brethren who have come to the place for the double purpose of making merry and making merit. Another temple, Wat Samplum, boasts a copy of Buddha's famous footprint, which is also worshipped amidst much jollity for three days each year. This footprint is sunk in the centre of the floor of a small spire-crowned room on the top of a low artificial hillock. It has no toes and also no heel. It is shaped like an infant's bath, and is about three feet long, two feet wide, and eighteen inches deep, and has been cut or moulded with strict mathematical regularity. It passes the wit of any European to imagine by what process of logical or illogical reasoning any person could bring himself to look upon this curious object as having the slightest resemblance to a human footprint. The usual fair accompanies the worship, and the believers have no sooner plastered their bit of gold-leaf on the sides or sole of the footprint than they descend the little elevation to take their part in the fun that rages fast and furiously at the bottom.