PREFACE. 



ably lead the translator, or author astray, when unable to 

 make a scientific examination for himself. On this Coast, 

 for instance, it has passed from conversation to books, 

 published within the last ten years, that turmeric is saf- 

 fron; the flower of the thorn-apple, the trumpet flower ; the 

 tamarind tree, the tamarisk, and its timber, iron wood ; 

 the ebony tree is the cabbage tree of one author, and the 

 fig tree of another ; while ebony not being supposed to 

 exist, though abundant throughout the Provinces, is de- 

 fined " a kind of a tree." The fennel flower is " a kind 

 of rice ;" nettles, " a kind of thorn ;" sweet flag, sugar 

 cane; and the date tree is the palmyra palm. Mica is 

 talc ; serpentine, jasper : the carnelian, a garnet or ruby ; 

 gamboge, realgar the red sulphuret of arsenic ; natron, the 

 carbonate of soda, is saltpetre the nitrate of potash ; and 

 antimony is bismuth, according to one authority, and 

 James' powder, according to another. The porcupine is 

 a hedge-hog ; the hedge-hog, a pangolin ; the shrew-mouse 

 a musk-rat; the sand-badger or arctonix, a hyena; bark- 

 ing deer, porcine deer; the monitor, a guana; and the 

 blood-sucker, a chameleon. The adjutant is a gull ; the 

 eagle, a swan ; the hornbill, a crane; the sun-bird, a sky- 

 lark ; and the grey heron, a water-hen. 



In a work translated from the Burmese into English, 

 and printed at the expense of Government, the Burmese 

 name of the common wild ox, Bos sondaicus, is translated 

 bison ; the sambur, or rusa deer, is elk ; barking deer, 

 spotted deer ; the eagle is an adjutant ; cranes are called 

 cyrusses ; sun-birds, hnan-sok ; a coluber is translated a 

 hng snake; a crocodile, an alligator ; the toad, " a rouah 

 frog;" tin in one place is lead ; and pewter, or a mixed 

 metal resembling it, is translated "white copper;" the 

 Bengal quince is rendered okshcct ; one species of millet, 

 sap ; another species of millet, barley ; barley is trans- 

 lated mayau, in one place, and mace in another; arum is 

 "ping (root)," a species of yam, thadce ; and the corypha 

 palm, the palmyra palm. 



This last error may be supposed to be of little conse- 

 quence, and yet through it, the whole paragraph in which 

 it occurs becomes false : and illustrates a precisely opposite 



