THE CHAPTER CONCERNING PEGO, A CITY OF INDIA.

The city of Pego is on the mainland, and is near to the sea. On the left hand of this, that is, towards the east, there

In chapter viii. of his Narrative of a Mission to the Court of Ava, Colonel Yule has arranged in chronological order a valuable collection of Notes on the Intercourse of the Burmese countries with Western nations up to the peace of Yandabo, comprising all the information available respecting Pegu and the adjacent kingdoms at this period. These notes, with his own interspersed commentary, form the most authentic history of those kingdoms extant, and the four sketch maps representing the historical geography of the Burmese countries at several epochs, convey at a glance the principal political and territorial changes which have successively taken place in that empire since A.D. 1500. With regard to the map illustrative of that date, I perceive that Tavoy is apparently described as an independent state embracing the entire seabord between the tenth and fifteenth degrees of latitude, whereas in a preceding note on pp. 197-8, I have implied that Tenasserim, which is included within those limits, was the principal kingdom on that part of the coast at the period indicated, but subordinate, nevertheless, to the suzerainty of Siam. (Towards the end of that century Tenasserim became tributary to Pegu, and a few years later, cir. A.D. 1619, judging from the extract quoted from Master William Methold's Relations of the Kingdome of Golchonda, and other Neighbouring Nations within the Gulf of Bengale, in the note last referred to, it appears to have reverted, for a time at least, to the authority of Siam.) I notice this discrepancy rather by way of suggesting a doubt as to the correctness of my own inference, than with the idea of questioning the accuracy of my learned friend Colonel Yule.

The following chapter from the Geography of Patavino, evidently compiled from the travels of Nicolo de' Conti, Varthema, Cæsar Fredericke, and the best authorities who succeeded them, contains so admirable an account of Pegu at the date when the work was published (1597), and when the kingdom was at the zenith of its glory, that I deem it worthy of quotation in full :-" PEGU regnum occupat littoris spatium 300 milliarium iuxta Occidentalem oram sinus Bengalici, ab urbe scilicet Tauay ad caput usque Nigraes; in Mediterraneis verò valdè extenditur. Optimos habet portus, ex quibus præcipuus est Martabane, in quo onerantur circiter 40 naues ex oryza, quæ in insulam Sumatram comportantur. Ager huius regni pinguis ac fertilissimus est, et rei frumentariæ ut plurimum admodum accommodus; animalia innumera nutrit, inter

is a very beautiful river, by which many ships go and come.1 The king of this city is a Pagan. Their faith, customs, manner of living and dress, are after the manner of Tarnassari; but with respect to their colour, they are somewhat more white. And here, also, the air is somewhat more cold. Their seasons are like ours. This city is walled, and has

quæ sunt equi pusilli, ad ferendum tamen idonei, quorum ingens est numerus, sicut etiam eliphantorum, qui in altissimis quibusdam montibus capiuntur, ac ad belli usum adseruantur. Psittaci etiam vocaliores quàm usquam alibi, et pulchriores reperiuntur, atque etiam feles, qui zibettum gignunt: arundines hîc excrescunt ad crassitiem unius dolij : nascuntur quoque hîc rubini. Unde regnum ipsum opulentissimum est et mercatoribus frequentissimum, qui commercijs plurimum operam nauant, et in ipsis portubus plures sunt mercatores Mauri ac gentiles. Deferunt autem ex hoc Regno ad Malacam oryzam, laccam, benzuinum, muscum, lapillos preciosos, argentum, batyrum, oleum, sal, cepas, et alia huius generis comestibilia: contra verò ex Malaca istuc ferunt porcellanas, colores, argentum vivum, æs, cinnabarim, Damascum floribus contextum, stannum, et alia. Ciuitas Regia est PEGU, clarissima totius Indiæ, monibus munita, et ædibus elegantissimus ornata, quæ à mari ciciter 25 milliaribus abest, quam fluuius eiusdem nominis maximus abluit, quæ etiam per totum regnum percurrens intumescit interdum adeò, ut magnum terræ tradum inundet: unde ab hoc incolæ oryzam copiosissimè colligunt. Præter hanc sunt insignes Tauay, Martabane, et Losmin emporium celebre. Sunt autem Peguini mediocris staturæ, magis ad crassitiem accedentes, agiles, et viribus præditi, ad bellum tamen inepti : nudi incedunt præter pudenda, capita tegunt albicantis pannis ad instar mitræ luxuriæ præterea valde dediti sunt, qui in mulierum gratiam ad virile membrum tintinabula aurea vel argentea appensa gestant ut sonum reddant dum per ciuitatem deambulant. Sunt verò super mortales omnes superstitiosissimi, et vanissimas habent circa religionem opiniones, ac ab omni veritate alienas. Rex PEGU multa hodie possidit regna, nempe Tangù, Prom, Melintay, Calam, Bacam, Mirandù, Aua, Brema [Burmah ?] ad Septentrionem exposita; deinde regnum Siam, et portus Martabanæ ac Ternasseri, et Aracam, ac Macin regna: et appellari quoque consueuit à scriptoribus nonnullis Rex Bremæ, seu Barmæ." p. 260.

1 Symes says: "The Pegue river is called by the natives Bagoo Kioup, or Pegue rivulet, to distinguish it from Mioup, or river. It is navigable but a very few miles to the northward of the city of Pegue, and for this it is indebted wholly to the action of the tide." PINKERTON, vol. ix., p. 446.

good houses and palaces built of stone, with lime. The king is extremely powerful in men, both foot and horse, and has with him more than a thousand Christians of the country which has been above mentioned to you. And he

:

1 So Ralph Fitch eighty years after Varthema :-" Pegu is a city very great, strong, and very fair, with walls of stone, and great ditches round about it. There are two towns, the old and the new. In the old town are all the merchants strangers, and very many merchants of the country. All the goods are sold in the old town, which is very great, and hath many suburbs round about it, and all the houses are made of canes, which they call bambos, and are covered with straw." (Id., pp. 416-7.) Symes says: "The extent of ancient Pegue may still be accurately traced by the ruins of the ditch and wall that surrounded it from this it appears to have been a quadrangle, each side measuring nearly a mile and a half. In several places the ditch is filled up with rubbish that has been cast into it, and the falling of its own banks; sufficient, however, still remains to show that it was no contemptible defence." He describes the streets of the new town as well paved with the bricks brought from the old city, but all the houses of the former as being made of mats, or sheathing boards, supported on bamboos or posts, "the king having prohibited the use of brick or stone in private buildings, from the apprehension that if people got leave to build brick houses, they might erect brick fortifications." Id., pp. 436-8.

2 We have Colonel Yule's authority for believing that Armenians, who were most probably petty merchants like their representatives there at the present day, have long frequented the Burmese court and capital; but the existence of a regiment of Armenians or Nestorians in the service of an Indian potentate at this period may be set down as a fable, and I read of no native Christians in Pegu prior to the advent of the Portuguese a few years later. Conti, who visited several parts of the country in 1444, states that the people turned towards the East every morning, and with clasped hands said: "God in Trinity and His Law defend us !" Varthema probably heard that a similar belief was professed by a portion of the Pegu army, and forthwith christianized them. Yule makes the following remark on the Burmese prayer above quoted: _"This, which at first sight looks like fiction, is really an evidence of Conti's veracity. He had doubtless heard of the Three Precious Ones,' the Triad of Buddha, Dharma, and Sanga, the Buddha, the Law, and the Clergy." And he adds in a foot-note, that " in a letter which the King of Ava wrote to the Governor-General of India, in 1830, his majesty speaks of his 'observing the three objects of worship, namely, God, his Precepts, and his Attendants or Priests." Mission to the Court of Ava, p. 208.

seen.

gives to each, for pay, six golden pardai per month and his expenses. In this country there is a great abundance of grain, of flesh of every kind, and of fruits of the same as at Calicut. These people have not many elephants, but they possess great numbers of all other animals; they also have all the kinds of birds which are found at Calicut. But there are here the most beautiful and the best parrots I had ever Timber grows here in great quantities, long, and I think the thickest that can possibly be found. In like manner I do not know if there can be found in the world such thick canes as I found here, of which I saw some which were really as thick as a barrel. Civet-cats are found in this country in great numbers, three or four of which are sold for a ducat. The sole merchandise of these people is jewels, that is, rubies, which come from another city called Capellan,1 which is distant from this thirty days' journey; not that I have seen it, but by what I have heard from merchants. You must know that in the said city, a large pearl and diamond are worth more here than with us, and also an emerald. When we arrived in this country, the king was fifteen days' journey distant, fighting with another who was called king of Ava. Seeing this, we determined to

1 Fitch mentions the same locality :-"Caplan is the place where they find the rubies, saphires, and the spinelles: it standeth six days' journey from Ava, in the kingdom of Pegu. There are many great hills out of which they dig them." (PINKERTON, vol. ix. p. 421.) Tavernier, "that rambling jeweller, who had read nothing, but had seen so much and so well," as Gibbon describes him, has the following on the same subject:"There are but two places in the east in which coloured stones are found, that is, the kingdom of Pegu and the island of Ceylon. The first is a mountain about a dozen days' journey from Siren [Sirian], on the north-east, and is called Capelan. This is the mine which produces the greatest quantity of rubies and spinels, otherwise called the mother of rubies, yellow topazes, jacinths, amethysts, and other stones of different colours." Id. vol. viii. p. 250.

"Pegu was also at war with Ava when visited by Hieronimo di San Stephano in 1496. In 1544, and again in 1552, it was subjected by the neighbouring King of Toungoo, called by Portuguese writers "King of

go and find the king where he was, in order to give him these corals. And so we departed thence in a ship made all of one piece,1 and more than fifteen or sixteen paces long. The oars of this vessel were made of cane. Understand well in what manner: where the oar takes the water it was cloven, and they insert a flat piece of board fastened by cords, so that the said vessel went with more power than a brigantine. The mast of it was a cane as thick as a barrel where they put in the provisions. In three days we arrived at a village where we found certain merchants, who had not been able to enter into the said city of Ava on account of the war. Hearing this, we returned with them to Pego, and five days afterwards the king returned to the said city, who had gained a very great victory over his enemy. On the second day after the return of the king, our Christian companions took us to speak with him.

THE CHAPTER CONCERNING THE DRESS OF THE KING OF PEGO ABOVE MENTIONED.

Do not imagine that the king of Pego enjoys as great a reputation as the king of Calicut, although he is so humane and domestic that an infant might speak to him, and he the Burmas," who extended his conquests over Ava, Magoung, Jangomai (Zimmé), the west of Yunan, and other adjoining states. This monarch appears to have been still on the throne when Cæsar Fredericke was at Pegu in 1586, and the extract from Patavino's Geography, quoted on pp. 215-6, gives an apparently authentic account of the different dependencies of the kingdom towards the end of that century. About that time, however, the empire began to decline, and its fall was as rapid as its rise in 1600, Pegu was besieged by the kings of Aracan and Toungoo, and its sovereign put to death; and thirteen years later the King of Ava was crowned at Pegu, from which period may be dated the dominance of the Avan monarchy over the lower provinces. See YULE'S Narrative of a Mission to the Court of Ava, pp. 208-213.

1 The μovošúλa of the author of the Periplus.

and Nav. of the Ancients, vol. ii. p. 521.

See VINCENT's Com.