are very difficult to find, and can be floated down to the capital only at seasons of the year when the rivers where they are found are full. They are hauled to the banks of the streams by elephants and buffaloes. The great difficulty of procuring these pillars is one main cause of the usual long delay of the funeral burning of a king. When brought to the city they are hauled up to the place of the P'ramene chiefly by the muscular power of men working by means of a rude windlass and rollers under the logs. They are then hewed and planed a little—just enough to remove all crooks and other deformities—and finished off in a cylindrical form. Then they are planted in the ground thirty feet deep, one at each corner of a square not less than one hundred and sixty feet in circumference. When in their proper place they stand leaning a little toward each other, so that they describe the form of a four-sided, truncated pyramid from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and eighty feet high. On the top of these is framed a pagoda-formed spire, adding from fifty to sixty more feet to the height of the structure. This upper part is octagonal, and so covered with yellow tin sheets and tinseled paper as to make a grand appearance at such a height, but it would not well bear close inspection.
Surrounding the P'ramene there is a new bamboo fence ten feet high, enclosing a square
