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168 BIBMAH.
business it is to prevent and extinguish fires, peram-
bulate the streets during the night.
' The maywoon's habitation, though not at all a
magnificent mansion for the representative of royalty,
is, notwithstanding, a building of much respectability,
compared to the other houses of Pegu. From an outside
view, we judged it to be roomy, and to contain
several apartments, exclusive of that in which he gives
audience: it possesses, however, but few ornaments.
Gilding is forbidden to all subjects of the Birman empire;
liberty even to lacker and paint the pillars of
their houses, is granted to very few. The naked wood
gave an unfinished appearance to the dwelling of the
maywoon, which, in other respects, seemed well
adapted for the accommodation of a Birman family.
"
The object in Pegu that most attracts and most
merits notice, is the noble edifice of Shoemadoo, or
the Golden Supreme. This extraordinary pile of build-
ings is erected on a double terrace, one raised upon
another. The lower and greater terrace is about ten
feet above the natural level of the ground, forming an
exact parallelogram: the upper and lesser terrace is
similar in shape, and rises about twenty feet above
the lower terrace, or thirty above the level of the
country. I judged a side of the lower terrace to be
1,391 feet; of the upper, 684. The walls that sus-,
tained the sides of the terrace, both upper and lower,
are in a ruinous state: they were formerly covered
with plaster, wrought into various figures. The area
of the lower is strewed with the fragments of small
decayed buildings, but 'the upper is
filth, and is in
tolerably good order.
kept free from
There is reason
to conclude that this building and the fortress are
coeval, as the earth, of which the terraces are com-
posed, appears to have been taken from the ditch, there