A BURMESE RECEPTION.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2176, 15 February 1881, Page 3

A BURMESE RECEPTION.

The correspondent of the “ Daily News ” at Rangoon writes ; —King Theebau has been bolding the usual reception after the end of Lent. The display this year was particularly grand. For three nights the whole town was brilliantly illuminated. Candles were placed on posts at intervals of ten paces in every street in the city, and each Taseh Aing Gonng had particular instructions to see that they were ke;t burning in the neighborhood of the “ ten houses ” over which he was placed, with the assurance that if he did not do so, things would not be made pleasant for him. The scene, therefore, from any height, such as the tower of the Mandalay Church, or from Mandalay Hill, was very fine. The two covered ways up to the pagoda on the top of the sacred hill were also profusely lighted up, and wound up the steep, uneven ascent like a couple of gigantic fiery serpents. Bands of music played in all the chief street. Dramatic performances were held in all the quarters of the town, the King himself having troupes at each of the four gates of the palace stockade. The amount of money spent on candles alone is scid to have exceeded three lakhs of rupees. Receptions were held on every one of the three days, that on the first being the grandest. The procession round about was three miles long, and every official mustered his finest accoutrements and called out every man, beast, and weapon in his possession te do honor to the King, and more particularly to himself. At the head of the procession went the belongings of the King in similitude—great model elephants, ships, shrines, &o. Among these latter was the carriage presented by her Majesty the Queen to the late King, the convenor of the Fifth Great Synod. That august potentate was not satisfied with the plain appearance ef an ordinary English coach, and had a Hpayah That placed on the roof of the vehicle, A Hpayah That is a seven-roofed spire such as towers over the palace and adorns great monasteries. Its appearance on the top of a carriage is decidedly striking, if not particularly pleasing, to Western eyes, and as an addition to the stability of the conveyance it oannst be pronounced a success. Nobody, however, goes inside the carriage, so that this does not so much matter. Arrived in the great audience chamber of the palace, everyone proceeds to prostrate himself. Then when his Majesty has taken his seat on the great throne, the presentation of the Kodau begins. The Kodau are gifts symbolising homage and loyalty to the Lord of the Umbrella-bearing Chiefs, and they must be presented every full moon of Thadingyoot (October). The gifts are all heaped up anyhow somewhere in the great hall, but a Than Dauzin, a Royal herald, brings up the palm-leaf slips containing lists of them. The scene is somewhat impressive, and such as could be seen nowhere out of the Royal city. The portals of the audience hall, thrown open wide, give a view full down the wide steps of the eastern gate of the palace enclosure, nearly a quarter of a mile off. Starting thence with fantastic gait and marvellous brandishings of the palmleaves, held at the full extent of the arm, the Than Dauzin, prostrating himself at every ten paces, advances to the foot of the throne, and depositing them there, lies prone. During this proceeding there comes every few minutes a long-drawn Hpaya-aab—a word expressing divinity—from the assembled courtiers. The whole thing is decidedly effective as a spectacle.