( 68 ) 



height, and the latter perhaps over five feet two. They were a 

 weak, insignificant, miserable, dirty-looking set, with dark com- 

 plexions, hair cut square over the forehead like that of a Bem- 

 brandt's child, in both sexes, notedly silent and presenting that 

 wary, suspicious cast of countenance, which is characteristic 

 of all wild tribes. The men were all armed with guns and 

 swords ; to their girdle was suspended a powder-flask, a bullet- 

 pouch made of rattans, and a few other paraphernalia con- 

 nected with their flint-guns ; from their shoulders was suspended 

 a dirty home-spun linen bag, containing a pdn-suparee box, 

 and other odds and ends. The women carried on their backs 

 a basket, pottle-shaped, but terminating towards the apex more 

 abruptly ; it was suspended by beautifully cane-plaited straps to a 

 yoke somewhat similar to that used in England to carry beer, or 

 milk cans, with an .extra strap to bring over the forehead, 

 on which a portion of the weight is borne. A few of the 

 women were carrying children on their backs, suspended in 

 a cloth sling brought over the shoulders and tied in front. 

 Their clothes consisted of a coarse home-spun blue cloth, 

 with red border, reaching to the knees, below which, they 

 wore a collection of rings made of cane, each of the thickness 

 of an elephant's hair, which I first mistook them for, on account of 

 the black shiny appearance produced by the thitsee oil with which 

 they are varnished. The women also wore similar ornaments 

 round their loins, together with girdles made of small cowrie shells, 

 which they greatly prize ; their jackets, which were of a finer mate- 

 rial, and likewise decorated with these shells, only concealed their 

 breasts, the remaining portion of the body, from navel upwards, 

 being exposed. My subsequent life with these wild tribes, taught 

 me that the people I have just described were a branch of the 

 Maroon clan. Further on in my journal, I shall have occasion to 

 enter more fully in the manners, habits, and customs of these people. 

 I need not, therefore, occupy more space here with this subject. 

 129. Before proceeding to describe the river further on, I must 



not forget to mention having seen a 

 omSto* 1 ™ knowledge of Burmese number of mango trees, whose trunks 

 pomo ogy. k^ | )een h ac k ec | to a height of three- 



feet six inches from the ground, with a view, I learnt, to pomolo- 

 gical improvement ; the tree, though blossoming abundantly, cast- 

 ing its fruit before ripe. As may be supposed, I was not a little 

 surprised to find the rude Burman had so far reaped the benefit 

 of observation as to intuitively resort to a violence which serves to 

 check the cresive energies of the tree, and thus bring the fructi- 

 ferous for reproductive essences into action. 



