THE portal of the stairs leading up to the great Buddhist shrine, known as the Shwè Dagon Pagoda, is guarded by two huge forbidding monsters that seem to warn the pious from nearer approach. To the disciples of Gaudama they convey, it may be, a meaning deeper and different. They may remind them that the beginning of life is the evil, not the end of it: that they should draw near to the holy place with no desire to live, but with a longing to be rid for ever of existence with its sorrows, its passions, and its illusions.

With his first upward step the pilgrim leaves the sordid life of the bazaar that almost touches the sacred doors. He passes through the lower stages of existence, the horror and misery of which are brought home to him by the leprous, the maimed, the blind-the types of misery in all forms which crouch on either side of the stairs.

As he mounts upward, the great teak pillars, the carved and gilded ceilings speak to him of higher forms of life and hopes of attaining to nobler things. Still the ascent is laboured and the full light of day withheld. He struggles on, scorning the temptation to rest.

At last, weary and breathless, he reaches the topmost stair; and lo! before him in

the full light of day and open to the heavens lies a vast flagged court in the midst of which rises the great pyramid of gold which marks the spot where the relics of the Great Teacher lie buried. Here, if anywhere in this existence, the pious disciple, far removed above the noise and turmoil of human life, may be able to free his soul from illusions and let it stretch forth towards the peace of Nirvana.

But like most of those who worship at other shrines, the disciples of Gaudama who come to the Shwè Dagon have not these high ideals. They come with the selfish thoughts and objects of mankind; not to subdue passion and kill desire, but to plead and entreat for themselves, for husband or wife or child; to strive in prayer with some power they do not know, in whose existence the Great Teacher forbade them to believe, and for objects he would have had them despise.

Ma Mè was toiling slowly up the long steps leading to the platform of the great Pagoda. She was an elderly woman; as Burman women count their years, almost an old woman; and her dress looked poor and shabby in the throng of gailyclad people crowding the broad stairs. For it was a festival day.

Ma Mè was toiling slowly up

the long stairs, weak from age and hunger, and heavy also with sorrow. She had come that morning from Tharrawaddy, travelling by the railway which the foreign heretics had made, the fire road worked by what force she did not know and did not ask. She took it as she took the sun and the moon, the wind and the rain, and her present hard, joyless life.

Her home was in a little village on the edge of the forests which clothe the western spurs of the Pegu hills, a country where every male child is born a brigand, and where no good-looking girl will speak to a man who has not seen service under some robber captain. She was making her way slowly up the long flights of steps. Now and again she would stop to rest. The stairs were steep and irregular, and once or twice when a step of unexpected height came in, Ma Mè would stumble and almost fall. There were many people coming up and many going down, and no one saw or cared to look at Ma Mè. The great staircase was a street of little shops where were set out toys of all sorts -quaintly coloured puppets moved by strings, brass images of Buddha, and candles for the pious to set before the shrines; above all candles, for few candles, for few would leave to-day without lighting one or more wax candles to burn before some favoured shrine.

Ma Mè was slowly toiling up, for she was not only worn with age and sorrow, she was also faint with hunger. At

VOL. CXCIV.-NO. MCLXXV.

dawn, before she left her home to walk to the railway station, eight miles or more from the forest village, she had eaten some rice saved over from yesterday's meal, and it was now past noon. She was still a long way from the top when a deadly faintness seized her. She sat down on a step, and tears marked their way down her dust-stained face. A good girl who had a refreshment stall beside the stair on which Ma Mè sat saw the poor woman. Pity came into her heart. She stopped powdering her face and arranging the flowers in her smooth black hair. "Mother," she said, "you look sad and tired. Take something to eat from my stall."

"Alas, daughter," said Ma Mè, "I have only a few small coins left; I must keep them to pay for my shelter tonight, as I have no friends in Rangoon."

But the girl said, "Never mind, you can pay me afterwards. In any case it is a good work and will be counted to me for righteousness in my next life." And so Ma Mè ate rice and drank water and was refreshed. Then she stepped out bravely. The rest of the way seemed nothing, although the stairs were of the steepest and the flights long. So she was able to think of the matter which was on her mind and had brought her to Rangoon. Hitherto she had had no thought of anything except of her hunger and her weakness. Her will had driven the poor body on and upward. She knew she must go on, but the 2 c

reason or object of her journey had passed from her brain.

The food, scanty and simple as it was, helped her memory to work. She remembered that she was going to save her son, the one son still left to her. He was a handsome, brave lad, and good to his mother. Every time he came home he brought her presents -ornaments of gold for her neck and arms; and her simple dress, just a length of cloth to wrap round her loins, had been of the rich silk of Upper Burma, from the looms of Sagaing, and her white bodice of the finest and daintiest muslin. But he had been taken by the police for murder and robbery. Everything had gone to get money to save him, to pay the lawyers and bribe the witnesses. And now she was clad no better than the Tamil coolies, the wretched foreign folk she loathed. All was gone, and she his mother was forced to take alms from the little Rangoon girl at the stall on the stairs. And Hla U, the brave handsome son Hla U, with his mass of black hair and his shiny brown body with the muscles standing out on arms and legs-alas! he could help her no more. He was lying in the foreign heretics' jail, and in seven days he was to die.

It was this had brought her to Rangoon. Yes, Hla U was a brigand and he had taken life. What was that to her? Was he not her son? Some men are born brigands, like Hla U and his father, ay, and his father's father before him.

Some who have earned merit in former lives are born to be prosperous and rich, or become great Ministers, who receive salaries and govern provinces. Others who have lived more perfectly in past existences are born to be pongyis, who live holy lives and are fed by the pious, and at the end "go home." She did not deny that Hla U was a robber and a murderer. He had robbed many villages. He had burnt many houses and taken many lives. But was it not to be counted to him that he had loved his mother; that he had fed the monks; that he had put up rest-houses and provided water for the weary traveller? Was all this to go for nought? Let him make atonement for his crimes. Let him suffer imprisonment, or stripes, or even banishment. Why take his life? Can the dead make atonement or set right the wrong they have done?

Such were the thoughts that passed through Ma Mè's mind as she toiled slowly up the stairs. She had made her petition to the foreign ruler yesterday. He had listened to her, but gave her no hope. Then a neighbour had told her how she had gained her wish and saved her little girl from death by propitiating the spirits at the great Rangoon shrine and by means of the magic wishing-stone. Ma Mè thought she too would go to Rangoon if the omens were good. If the spirits were unkind it would be useless to make the long journey.

So

she had sent for the natsaw, the divining man of the village. One of the fowls pecking about near her house was caught and opened, and the natsaw pronounced the omen to be good. Thus she had come to the great pagoda.

Only a few more stairs to mount. She could already see the light through the door at the top of the stairs. In another moment she has passed out on to the spacious platform. The shrine of Buddha, a mountain of polished gold blazing in the full light of the sun, rises before her eyes. Dazed and awe-stricken, she falls prostrate and puts up her hands in prayer. To whom or to what? Not to Buddha, but to those spirits whose favour it is needful to win, who can be moved by offerings and prayers, and are able, if they chose, to save her son.

It was a festival day, and crowds of men and women were moving to and fro across the great open square. They were all gaily dressed and were full of cheerfulness. Excepting those who knelt or sat in attitudes of devotion before the shrines, they were excited and garrulous. There was war between the British and the Burman King. The air was full of rumours. Strange portents had been seen everywhere. That very night hair had grown on the Sacred Sulè pagoda in the town. Even now a divine light was hovering about the Jewelled Hti, which, forming the summit of the Shwè Dagon, rose far away above their heads almost to the sky.

An excited Burman-by his dress a man of some rank, a clerk, perhaps, in a Government office-was scanning the Hti anxiously with an operaglass. Now he saw the holy light at one side, now at another; and as he ran quickly from this point to that, so as not to lose the light, and called loudly to the people to look, the crowd swayed in one direction and then in another, and poor Ma Mè was caught in the rush and borne hither and thither like a leaf upon a stream.

At length she found her way to the part of the platform she had been told to seek. There, amidst a group of lifelike and life-sized figures of Gaudama and his disciples, she saw the object of her quest, the magic wishing-stone, an oblong block polished with much handling.

A man lay prostrate in front of the stone with hands raised in supplication. A little while and he was on his knees, moving nearer to the stone until there was just a cubit between his knees and it. He measured the distance carefully, from elbow to finger-tip-a oubit exactly, neither more nor less. Then, bending forward, he gripped the stone in both hands and tried to raise it from the ground. He was a sturdy, strong-backed man, in the prime of life, a boatman likely anyhow, a strong, muscular man. Soon, breathless and exhausted, he stopped to recover his strength. At this time all the interest lay round the great pagoda, where the miraculous light dancing round

like a will-o'-the-wisp drew the people first to one side, then to the other. No one came near the man at the stone.

When he had rested he looked behind and about him. Seeing no one at hand-the poor old body Ma Mè did not count-he shuffled an inch or two nearer to the stone-thus do we deceive ourselves-and made a new attempt. Perhaps he had called a stronger faith to his aid-perhaps a more material cause helped him. He took fresh heart and made a heroic struggle. The sweat stood on his brow, and his heaving chest and flanks showed through his linen jacket the mighty efforts he was making. Just as it seemed that he must roll over hausted, he made one more trial. The stone came up about a finger's-breadth from the ground and then slipped from his forceless hands.

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Ma Mè had watched the struggle intently. When she saw the stone move and the joy of success in the man's face, she took it as a good omen and made deep obeisance to the successful one, who bade her good luck and swaggered off as if he had backed the winning horse at the Rangoon races.

Her heart beat fast and she breathed deeply as she knelt

down before the stone. The man who had succeeded did not tell how he had cheated the stone or the spirit which worked through it. He told her to be very careful in measuring the distance, as any mistake might annoy the spirits.

Ma Me was soon upon her knees in front of the stone. If an intense desire for help can be called prayer, she prayed as earnestly, as intensely, as a human soul can pray. Then she bent forward as she had seen the man bend, and gripped the stone with all the force her small childlike hands could put forth and tried to raise it. Again and again she tried. The cruel stone was immovable as a mountain. No nat, no spirit, nothing heeded her prayers. Then her strength failed. She could do no more. She crouched crouched panting for breath, unable to rise.

The people were all afar off. At last, with infinite effort, she staggered to her feet. An Englishman who was wandering around happened to come that way just as she rose. He saw in her face that supreme despair which is "without God and without hope in the world." He gave her a few small coins and turned away very sorrowful.