Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/189

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CHIEF TOWNS
173

Krakuchanda, the staff of Kāsyapa, the bathing-robe of Konāgāmana, and eight hairs of Gaudama. Fitch (1586) describes it in glowing words:

It...is of a wonderful bigness, and all gilded from the foot to the top. And there is a house by it wherein the tallipoies, which are their priests, do preach. The house is five and fifty paces in length and has three pawnes, or walks in it, and forty great pillars, gilded, which stand between the walks; and it is

Fig. 67. Shwe Dagôn Pagoda platform.

Fig. 67. Shwe Dagôn Pagoda platform.

open on all sides with a number of small pillars, which be likewise gilded. It is gilded with gold within and without. There are houses very fair round about for the pilgrims to lie in, and many goodly houses for the tallipoies to preach in, which are full of images, both of men and women, which are all gilded over with gold. It is the fairest place, as I suppose, that is in the world: it standeth very high, and there are four ways to it, which are all along set with trees of fruits, in such wise that a man may go in shade about two miles in length. And when their feast day is, a man can hardly pass, by water or by land,