( 50 ) 



were sent me, under an official letter of instruction from the Resi- 

 dent, which will be found among the appendices. 



90. As there yet remained two days before the steamer would 

 T7- -x * /vi c * start for Bhamo, I determined on visit- 



Visit to City ot Amarapoora. . . , .-. -. 



mg Amarapoora, a city though per- 

 haps of no great antiquity, is, nevertheless, one whose past associa- 

 tions lay claim to reflection. Among the ruins of this once-flour- 

 ishing capital are the relics of past opulence and grandeur that in 

 themselves are most instructive, and cannot fail to excite the inter- 

 est even of the least curious. King Mentaragyee Phra, fourth son 

 of Alompra, on his accession to the throne, transferred the seat of 

 Government from Ava to Amarapoora, and, it is believed, took pos- 

 session of his new Palace.on the 10th May 1783. He died in 1819, 

 after a reign of thirty-eight years. In 1822 his grandson and suc- 

 cessor re-established the capital at Ava, which, with the exception 

 of King Mentaragyee's reign, has continued to be the metropolis 

 for four centuries. In 1837 Prince Tharrawaddie, brother to Men- 

 taragyee, seized the throne, and renewed the seat of Government 

 at Amarapoora, where it remained until the establishment of the 

 present capital, Mandalay. 



The walled embankments and wooden bridges of extraordina- 

 ry length, that kept up communication with the city when the over- 

 lap of the Myetnye Choung flooded the country to the east and 

 south, are fast being obliterated by age, the embankments in 

 many places are already level with the ground, and all trace of 

 the bridges will be equally extinct ere long. So also will the walls 

 of this once proud city ; but there still remains sufficient trace of 

 the gateways to estimate their original solidity and massiveness. 

 The roads, with few exceptions, are a tangled mass of scrub jungle, 

 and the richly carved and gilded buildings are in the last stage of 

 decay, affording but a poor sample of the magnificent spectacle 

 they must once have presented. 



The great gun brought from Arakan in the last century, 

 measuring twenty-eight feet nine inches, with an external diameter 

 at the breach of two feet seven inches, and calibre of only eleven 

 and half inches lies spiked and hidden in the grass. It is an unweildy 

 piece of ordinance, being made of a number of pieces of bar iron, 

 bound together by hoops of the same material, and the whole 

 clumsily welded together. 



91. Amarapoora, though less densely populated than in the 

 ^ . „ e . days of its prosperity, still contains a 



Population of Amarapoora. , J ! i» -n ■ a i 



large number of well-to -do -people. 

 The principal street is occupied by cloth merchants and vendors 

 of various other articles, the more wealthy apparently being 



