( 44 ) 



79. The old site of the market-place was being cleared of all 



, , . , its rubbish by gangs of convicts, who 



Convicts and then- treatment. we fer ^ heayily ^^ ^ 



one is accustomed to see in British territory. They looked the 

 picture of misery and starvation. The jail I was informed is an 

 ordinary bamboo building, enclosed by a wall of the same material. 

 At night the prisoners are placed in stocks, and for food they are 

 either dependent on their friends or charity. Deaths from starva- 

 tion, neglect, or cruelty are of common occurrence, but unknown 

 to the king we are told, who boasts never having ordered one of 

 his subjects to be executed : but if newspapers may be depended 

 on, it would appear from Mr. Marks's speech delivered at Ceylon, 

 that when His Majesty wishes a party executed, he orders that he be 

 put out of sight, and shortly after the mandate, the offender is re- 

 ported to have died from indigestion ! 



80. North of the town, and just below the foot of Mandalay Hill, 



is the encamping-ground for Shan 



Encamping-ground of Shans and and p a l oimg traders, for whose COll- 

 Paloungs ; then* system of trade. . y • -i i 



venience extensive zayats have been 

 built. They commence to arrive from the states east and north-east 

 of the capital about the end of October or middle of November, 

 bringing with them tea, palm-sugar, stick-lac, &c, and taking 

 back other merchandize, principally salt. Everything is carried 

 in pottle-shaped panniers slung either on ponies, mules, or bul- 

 locks. I tasted the two descriptions of tea imported — one in the 

 form of balls, and the other compressed in a hollow bamboo ; but 

 they seemed wanting in flavour, owing no doubt to the careless 

 manner in which they were originally picked and prepared. 

 Apparently this insipid flavour is most appreciated, for it is quite 

 common to see baskets of tea suspended from rafts and floated down 

 the river, or tied together and allowed to soak in the moat below 

 the Residency with apparently the one object of ridding the leaf as 

 much as possible of all its bitter and narcotic properties. The morn- 

 breast, was evidently taking after the mother. There was a little hair on the head, but the child's 

 ear was full of long silky floss, and it could boast of a moustache and beard of purple silky down 

 that would have cheered the heart of many a cornet. In fact, the appearance of the child 

 agrees almost exactly with what Mr. Crawford says of Maphoon herself as an infant. This 

 child is thus the third in descent exhibiting the strange peculiarity, and in this third generation, 

 as in the two preceding, this peculiarity has appeared only in one individual. Maphoon has the 

 same dental peculiarity also that her father had, the absence of the canine teeth and 

 grinder the back part of the gums presenting merely a hard ridge, still she chews pan like her 

 neighbours. Mr. Camaratta tells some story of an Italian wishing to marry her, and take her 

 to Europe, which was not allowed. Should the great Barniun hear of her, he would not be 

 so easily thwarted. According to the Woondouk the King offered a reward to any man who would 

 marry her, but it was long before any one was found bold enough or avaricious enough to 

 venture. Her father, Shwe Maong, was murdered by robbers many years ago. — Yule's Ava, page 



