{Ikdication tu tin: Second Edition.) 

 TO 



LIEUT.-COL. ARTHUR P. PHAYRE, 



COIIMISSIONEE OF Vv.dV. 



THIS BOOK OF PEGU AND BURMAH, 



■\VHICn IS MITCH INDEBTED TO HIS RESEARCHES, 



IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 



BY THE AUTHOR. 



The goWcn age -when Pegu was suvanna-lunime "The land of gold," aud the 

 Irrawaddy suvanna-nadee "The river of gold," has passed away, and the country 

 degenerated into the land of paddy, and the stream into the river of teak. Yet its 

 last days are its hest days. If the gold has vanished, so has oppression ; — if the 

 gems have fled, so have the task-masters ; — if the palace of the " Brania of Toungoo " 

 is in ruins who had "twenty-six crowned heads at his command," the slave is free. 



Tliough a poor man cannot find sudden wealth as he may perchance in Australia 

 or California, he can ever find work, aud by two days' labour he can always earn 

 enough to maintain himself the whole weels ; so by one year's toil he may gain 

 sufficient to support himself three. 



There is perhaps no country in the world where there are so few beggars, so 

 little suffering, and so much actual independence in the lower strata of society as in 

 Pegu. And perhaps in no part of India is the fire of truth upheaving those strata 

 to the light, and metamorphosing them mentally, morally and socially, more surely or 

 more rapidly than in Pegu. 



Tutus bos ctenim rura pcrambulat, 

 Nutrit rura Ceres, almaque Faustitas, 

 Pacatum volitant per mare navitae, 

 Culpari raetuit Fides ; 



Nullis poUuitur casta domus stupris, 

 Mos et lex maculosum edomuit nefas, 

 Laudantur simili prole ptierpcrae, 

 Culpam poena premit comes. 



Longas o utinam, dux bone, ferias 

 Praestos Burmahiac ! dicimus integro 

 Sieci mane die, dicimus uvidi, 

 Quum Sol Oceano subest. 



