A bumble wick-burning oil lamp is not ea aesthetic object—but Imagine about 5,000 brightly-decorated oil Jamps all burning with a smoky yellow ylare, and grouped like gar-Bantuan bunches of grapes in 100 Incredible chandeliers suspended from the facade without and the ceiling within at every conceivable point Imagine these myriad lights augment-the hissing incandescence ut scores of fas-mantle lanterns hun 2 strategic interstices, And imagine this fairyland of illumination reflected upon—not the coarse bamboo thatch. nol—but a facade, walls, ceilings, pillars and cornices covered with profusion of gilt Mllgree wooden and fingal carving ornamented with glass fand sparklers, a dazzle of tiny floures, seenes, designs, pagodas and other Acconted Pitch of Curiosity must be borne in mind, then, that this delirious coruscation of light and reflection set the key for our reaction to the sights In, store for us within the ""cathedral." The throngs of native sightseers must have felt fomewhat of the same exhilaration, for the folk of all classes and walks of life exhibited an accented pitch of curiosity coupled with roistering quite lunudual in the sullen city streets. Remete hsiens must have been ro-presented in the crowds, for certain eeuliar headdresses and metal halrornaments on various women dicated that they had indeed strayed far from their upriver or mountain fastnesses. At any other occasion we would! have enjoyed pausing to study the frees and dress of the sightseers who hemmed us in on all sides, But not ea this oner Under the astonishing drifts of light we entered th ud gaped with wonder. for most of the event erect use of shoulders and elbows we tunnelled our way through the crowds toward the right hand, and there beheld half of the chief exhibit feature which lined the two lengthwise walls, namely, a graphic sculptural repre: sentation of the eighteen "hells" famous in Buddhist cosmogony!
Specially Fashioned "Hells"
Each "hol!" was fashioned in the following manner: a space adjoining the wall was railed off, and within, jo series of ascending and receding. Tevels (in the manner of giant slops) had been prepared, with partitions. separating It from fis neighbour sections. Furthermore, decorations and jeanopies were so arranged as to cause leach higher level to be more restricted than' the one immediately below, so that the apex" of the pyramidal structure, high above the heads of onlookers, was large enough to hold only the dignified Image of the deity. presiding over the particular nook of Hades concerned.
'On the steps' immediately below were figures of judges, advocates. and atiencants, 2 few being dressed—in~ Jcongruousiy enough—in what wac intended to be foreign costume. Further down, on the evels opposite nnd' nearer to our eyes, were the! fascinating groups of criminals and their torturers. T must nol neglect to say that the ymannikins composing these scenes were half life-size, their bodies made of coloured paper mould fed over bamboo framework, with heads of paper-mache or elay—pup-pels somewhat stiff but exhibiting a feertam vigour, and given plenty of applied expression! Whereas the faces Jof the majority of the mannikins were white, the faces and upper bodies of the wretched vielims (who were generally represented as stripped to the waist) were painted gruesome
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.