- Author:
- O'Connor, V. C. Scott (Vincent Clarence Scott)
- Publication Info:
-
London:
Hutchinson and co,
1904,
pg 204
Text on page 204
The 'Silken East v
Extraordinary beings surround this central image, making of the place more a chamber of horrors than the shrine of a pure faith.
The joss-house is used as a club, and under the shelter of its trees in the open courts, men with time
upon their hands pass many hours of the day, sipping tea, and smoking their elegant silver pipes. Here, too, the opium smoker finds seclusion, and as I go by, where a young peach-tree is breaking into bloom, the very harbinger of spring, I find him lying stretched upon a sofa of polished vermilion lacquer, his glazed unconscious eyes half shut, dreaming the strange dreams for which he lives.
Outside of Bhamo lies Sampenago, the dead city which was great for a thousand years before Bhamoathe potters' villagea came into existence. Pathways lead to it through the heart of the river-jungle, where the purple Taping, laden with the waters of Momein, steals through waving grasses to its union with the Irrawaddy. Aisles of old pagodas bring me to the Shwe-Kyina with its
204
a shana shan
