In the heart of the plain they have past, and there

The moon on a temple shone,

And they note a Chinese with his braided hair,

By some embers employ'd alone :

He was stirring up the bones of his sire,
With a tool like a gardener's prong;

He had burnt him that day by a famous fire,
And was closing his task with a cheerful song.*

They have gone many miles since the night begun,
And the mystic moon to her height hath won.
They pause by the jaws of a tangled wood,
For gloomily there the shadows brood,

And they thought how the tigers in search of food
From the distant forest had lately strayed,

--And they looked on each other, and mutely prayed.

Prah-klang, took this opportunity to effect his escape. The mode in which he accomplished this, afforded some insight into the character of the servants of the Siamese government. The robber seduced the whole guard, and walked off with them; thus not only effecting his own escape, but taking with him an armed and organized body of depredators." -Crauford's Embassy, p. 176.

'Returning home one day from an excursion on the Menam, my attention was attracted by observing a Chinese all alone stirring up some embers within the enclosures of a temple, with an instrument resembling a pitchfork. On landing, we found that he was completing the funeral rights of some relative. He was stirring the fire to complete the destruction of some of the larger bones, and was either cheering or consoling himself with a song!"-Crauford's Embassy, p. 450.

They are walking on with a trembling tread,
And painful the path thro' the jungle to thread;
And their hearts beat high at the sullen crush
Of the boughs swinging back to their broken hush ;
And they hear the hiss of the startled snake,
And they see the bed in the trampled brake,
Where some ravening beast, aroused by the moon
To his prey, had reposed thro' the sultry noon.

But aye, as they paused for breath, the part
Of the cheerer was donned by the darker heart,
For the nerves of the one, whom in safety ye deemed
The gallanter spirit, now quail and cower,

While the calm which in common a dulness seemed,

Grew courage when kept thro' the perilous hour.

The jungle is cleared, and the moon shines bright
On a broad and silent plain;

And (gaunt in the midst) the streaming light
Sleeps, hushed on a giant Fane!

No late-built, gay, and glittering shrine,*
Like those the Boudhist holds divine;

* The massy and antique solemnity of the Hindoo temple, compared with those devoted to the Boudhist religion, covered as the latter are with gilding, and grotesque ornaments made of the most gaudy and least durable materials, never fails to strike every traveller in the countries where the two religions are found together.

But simple-lone-grey-vast-and hoar,

All darkly-eloquent of Eld! The farthest years of untold yore

That temple had beheld.

Sadly and desolately now,

It rais'd to Heaven its gloomy brow;
Its altars silent and untrod,-

The faith has left the Brahmin's God.*

There while the brothers gazing stood,
Their youthful blood grew chill,
Appalled beneath the Solitude,
The Sternness and the Still!

They have gain'd the sacred bound,

They have pass'd its broken wall;

And they quail as they walk, when they hear the sound Of their steps in the temple fall!

They stand in a desolate place,

Their roof the starr'd and breathless Space!

An altar at their feet, o'erthrown !

On the grey walls around, half-rased,

Strange shapes and mystic rhymes are traced,

Typing a past world's fate.

They (the Hindoo temples) were dreary and comfortless places, and there was no mistaking the religion which had the countenance and protection of the state."-Crauford's Embassy, p. 119.