presents of various kinds. Then for some twelve days he, with all his princes, ministers of state and high nobles, makes a business of visiting daily some three or four of the temples that are accessible only by water, and after this the second king makes his visits. The river presents a very animated appearance as the boat-processions pass escorting His Majesty. It is filled with barges, slender and graceful in their proportions, each propelled by from forty to eighty natives, who fill the air with their wild outcries as they simultaneously dip their long paddles into the water and then raise them high into the air. First, two by two, will be a score of canoe-like vessels, each perhaps fifty feet long, with a bright crimson awning over the centre and some sixty or seventy men in red uniform; then boats with music preceding the stately barge that conveys His Majesty. This is perhaps one hundred and twenty feet long, besides the gilded stern, which curves gracefully up some fifteen or twenty feet from the water. From prow and stern hang two graceful plumes of long white horse-hair, and between them a small apron-like banner floats in the breeze. In the centre of the boat reclines His Majesty on an elevated cushioned platform, in a pavilion with an arching roof from which hang curtains of crimson-and-gold cloth. The barge is propelled by eighty men with long gilded paddles. Following the king will be a
