Then ensued one of those wonderful scenes which no romancer
would dare invent, and which could occur only in Farther Asia. The great capital, with its palace citadel half a mile square covered with gilded roofs, its pagodas, and its public buildings, lay as if asleep. The gates were thrown open, and there was a population of a hundred thousand quietly at gaze while the white men, with music playing, went forward to arrest their King. The palace was occupied, the city guarded, and on the following day the General was "accorded an audience," and entered the palace by the staircase reserved exclusively to royalty. He found the King, " a stout young man, undersized, but dignified," and his Queen, a woman "with a clever face and an evil month," almost alone, bodyguards and councillors having fled, and signified to him his deposition. The King spoke little, except when prompted by his wife, but seemed chiefly anxious about his own life, and when informed that he must visit Calcutta, assented. Accordingly, in the afternoon, he and his Queen and a number of women seated themselves in carts drawn by oxen, and so were dragged to the wharf, under the gaze of that huge populace, which neither wept, nor cheered, nor cared. As soon as they were on board, the steamer started for Rangoon, where the last Emperor of Delhi died on a mat in a cottage, a State prisoner; and so depatted from history the House- of Alompra, which only sixty-two years since reigned over Burmah, Assam, Pegu, Arakan, and Tenasserim, demanded tribute of Siam, and promised to become dominant throughout ludo- China. It is hopeless to think of restoring it. No dynasty could survive a fall so humiliating, or such a desertion by its people, and the only course now is to install a British Governor. The inhabitants expect him, and in fact, Colonel Sladen, formerly Resident, has taken up the reins, and is organising the country pending the arrival of Lord Dnfferin, who will issue his final proclamation in Mandelay itself.
