This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt: ... Chapter Two. WITHIN THE PAGAN GATE. The Third Moon day dawned propitiously upon the plains which reached beyond Mandalay to the crumbling walls of Pagan. With the first gray light of morning a hundred thousand forms rose from the ground on which they had slept through the night and began pushing, a great seething mass of half hysterical humanity, toward the city gates which had opened upon this same tableau, each year, for ten centuries. From all the roads that converged upon the Pagan plain long lines of tardy pilgrims hurried, losing themselves in the greater mass like little rivulets flowing through ridges ia the banks of a swirling lake to add their streams to the eddying bulk. When the first red glow of the wakening sua tinted the horizon above the low line of hills to die east, presaging the coming of the Fire Symbol itself, a great clamor arose on the plain. It was the loud shout of lusty men, to which was added a touch of shrillness by the piercing cry of women permitted this one time of the year to raise their voice in a public place. By this spontaneous cry these happy subjects of the good King Majjhima made known to Sita that they had come, on the appointed day, to thank her for the blessings of the year gone by, and to invoke new ones for the twelve months to come. The mass swayed close to the gates. Within a hundred yards it halted, leaving an open space in the shape of a semi-circle. In this clear space there stood twelve stately, solemn figures. Their eyes were eagerly turned to the east, where the red glow was. Although the dust of many miles was caked on the feet of this little company, each figure was robed in spotless white garments, hemmed with gold thread, which indicated that these were the High Priests of the...