"The grandest and most characteristic pagoda is on the right bank, surrounded by a fine and verdant wood. It rises amidst a cluster of small towers which command a central pyramid three hundred feet high. This is at the base in the form of the lower part of a cone, with one hundred and fifty steps; then it becomes a six-sided tower with dormer windows supported by three white elephants' trunks; the graceful spire then rises from a nest of turrets, and shoots upward like a single column rounded off into a cupola at the summit; from thence a bronze gilt arrow extends twenty crooked arms that pierce the clouds. When lighted up by the rays of the sun it all becomes one mass of brilliancy; the enamelled colors of flaming earthenware, the coating of thousands of polished roses standing out in the alabaster, give to this pagoda, with its pure and brilliant architecture unknown under any other sky, the magical effect of a dream with the colossal signs of reality.

ABOUT