The Thihadaw monastery is on a small island in the middle of the third and lowest defile of the Irawadi. Large numbers of half-tamed dog-fish are in the waters around the island, great five feet-long, gape-mouthed creatures, which are fed by the pious. All the monastic tanks of Burma have such fish, more or less tame. The Nga-dan or butter - fish at the Kyeiklat monastery are summoned by beating the bank and calling Tit, tit, tit, and fed by the Ya-han and young Ko-yin. The Nga-dan allow their beads to be stroked and to have gold-leaf affixed. There is a peak 3650 feet high, on the crest of the main dividing range between the rivers Tsit-toung and Salwin, in British Burma. Its most remarkable features aro the numerous granitoid boulders scattered about the summit, some being balanced in a marvellous manner on the most prominent rocks.- On the more striking of these, pagodas have been built, among which the Kyaik - hti - yo - go - le and the Kyaik - hti - yo are the principal. The latter, about 15 feet high, is built on a huge egg-shaped boulder, perched on the apex of a shelving and tabular rock, which it actually over hangs by nearly one - half. Pious Buddhists believe that the pagoda is retained in its position solely by the power of the hair of Buddha or Gautama enshrined in it. This relic is fabled to have been given to a hermit living on the moun tain by Buddha himself.
The gurus of most of the Hindu sects are monks, and several of the sects are ascetics, who recruit their numbers by adoption. The gurus or priors reside in the mat'h or monasteries. They are not numerous with Hindus, and asceticism and mon astieism'aniong the Muhammadan sects is very'rare.
Monasticism, among Christians, first took its rise in Egypt ; and the Coptic monasteries of St. Anthony and St. Paul claim to be founded on the spots where the first hermits established their cells on the shores of the Red Sea. Next in point of antiquity are the monasteries of Nitria in the neighbourhood of the Natron lakes, which are situated in the desert to the N.W. of Cairo, on the western side of the Nile. Of these monas teries authentic accounts are extant, dated as far back as the middle of the second century, when Fronto retired to the valleys of the Natrou lakes with 70 brethren in his company.
The Abba Ammon and the Abba Bischoi betook themselves to this desert in the beginning of the 4th century, the latter founding the monastery still called after his name, Isaiah or Esa, to which the Copts prefix the article B or P. St. Maearins first retired into the Thebaid A.D. 335, and about 37.3 established himself in a•solitary cell on the borders of the Natron lakes. He died A .D. 394, after 60 years' residence in various deserts. Numerous anchorites followed his example. He was the founder of the monastic order which, as well as the monastery still existing on the site of his cell, was called after his name. After the time of Macarius the number of ascetic monks increased to a surprising amount. Rufinus, who visited them in the year 372, mentions 50 of their con vents. Palladius, who was there in the year 387, reckons the devotees at 5000. St. Jerome also visited them, and their number seems to have been kept up without diminution for several centuries.—Quarterly Review.