WD540(6)

‘Prome, from the Southern heights.’

FROM Barrack hill. Prome is situated on the eastern or left bank of the Irrawaddy, and at one of the most pictorial parts of its course. The approach is extremely beautiful. The bank towers into a lofty hill, clad in vegetation of the loveliest mossy hue, dotted with patches of dark underwood, and the massive foliage of noble trees. Tempting foot-paths thread the ascent, and penetrate the depths, and the whole is rendered European in its pictorial aspect by innumerable bowlders, or fragments of rock, studding the shore beneath; whilst the Electric Telegraph wire above it seemed yet further to cheat the imagination into visions of Devon or Derbyshire.

The principal object of interest in Prome is its gilded and more than ordinarily sacred and great Pagoda, conspicuously crowning the summit of a hill overlooking the town and river. It is called the Shwoe-san-dau, or ‘Golden Hair,’ and is said to enshrine a hair of Gautama, the founder of the Boodhist doctrines. The long flight of steps, reaching from the foot of the hill to the principal entrance, covered by a succession of gilded roofs, form a conspicuous object in the landscape.

Near to the pagoda, both on the same level, and on lesser eminences around, are numerous smaller spires of diminutive Pagodas, Tzoums, and other of the religious edifices which are generally found clustering about the more important temples.

This view was taken from the heights occupied by the British army during the early war. An abundance of vegetation every where clothes the hills and hollows, and margins the paths, and is enriched by a great variety of beautiful wild flowers, amongst which the convolvulus is luxuriantly conspicuous.