The Brahman had little interest in the big Burmese bells by the temple door, in the venerable statues, or in the sacred sites. Whether this place was the cloistered flower-tank or the lotus-pond, or only where Buddha washed his robe or his bowl, he cared not; but he showed us insistently the cylindrical monument to the first mahant of the Shivaite monastery, who there performed the great penance, or rather feat, of "the five fires." To attain great spiritual reward, this sacred salamander sat between four fires, with the midsummer sun overhead, and survived to enjoy the expected sanctity. Another monument marked where one of the fraternity had been devoured by a tiger while at prayer, and the Brahman could not understand our affected depression when he had assured us and reassured us that the tigers did not come to the courtyard now—"not eat the priests any more, surely, truly, memsahib. Be not uneasy."
The Brahman boasted of the number of pilgrims who came to Buddha-Gaya—"from everywhere!—from Colombo, Rangoon, Tibet-ty, China, Japan!—oh, from everywhere! Now is there a Japanese over there at the palace," pointing toward the monastery by the river bank. He led us to the mahants' college, and through a labyrinth of stone courts, where scores of Shivaite priests lounged and loafed over their bowls and messes of food, and across a garden full of little Burmese pagodas, to the rest-house built for resting Burmese by King Mindon Min. The Brahman routed out a languid creature in loose garments with yards of a pale pink sarong wobbling
