TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 171 



for tlie ramparts of their cities, for the elevated platforms of their timber palaces, 

 or for the solid domes which form the symbols to which Buddhist worship is 

 directed. Yet in all, or nearly all, these countries we hud remains of an elaborate 

 and grandiose architectiu-e devoted to religious purposes. Such are the ancient 

 Javan temples, generally built of hewn stone, and including the extraordinary 

 pyramid of sculptured terraces called Boro Bodor. Temples analogous to those 

 of Java have been found in Sumatra, and in connexion with one of them a San- 

 skrit inscription as old as tlie seventh century ; in Burma we find them of fine 

 brickwork, in the remains of the great medieval citj' of Pagan, on the Irawadi 

 river, whose ruins cover many square miles, and still exhibit several grand 

 structures rising to a height of nearly 200 feet ; others, also of brick, exist in the 

 dense jungles which cover the remains of Yutbia in Siam. And but lately we 

 have become acquainted with the vast remains of Cambojan architecture — im- 

 mense temples and corridors of hewn stone, with furlongs of sculptured bas-reliefs. 

 In Champa remains of similar character are alleged to exist ; but we have no 

 account of them. Each of these diU'erent series of remains has its own peculiar 

 characters ; but often there are close resemblances of general design, and in the or- 

 namental detail throughout the whole of the series there is much of this resem- 

 blance ; and that is of Indian character. Yet it must be said that, of the build- 

 ings as wholes, we hud no type anywhere in India. Recently I have been much 

 struck by photographs of ancient remains in Ceylon, in the possession of Mr. Fer- 

 gusson, which afford strong corroboration of a suspicion long ago expressed by 

 myself, that the nearest archetype and common parent of these structures may 

 have been in that island. 



Time compels me to omit much that I had noted regarding the progress of our 

 Imowledge of these countries, and to hasten down to our own times. 



After the mission of Colonel Symes and Dr. Francis Buchanan to Ava in 1795, 

 no material advance was made in our knowledge of these regions till the time of 

 the first Burmese war, in 1824-26. For several years from that time the British 

 Government in India exhibited a zeal for the extension of geographical knowledge 

 such as rarely possesses any Government. A little army of surveyors and explorers 

 were thrown upon the frontier of Asam ; and the remote territories lying between 

 Asam and Bengal on the one side, and Northern Burma on the other, were partially 

 explored. Some of our officers traversed Northern Burma from Ava to the frontiers 

 of Asdm and Silhet ; others, starting from Maulmain, A'isited tnost of the Western 

 Shan States from the neighbourhood of Ava to the Siamese capital. And in 1837 

 Lieutenant (now General) William Macleod, of the Madras Ai-my, accomplished 

 the most important journey that had been made, by penetrating across more than 

 half the breadth of the peninsula to the remote state of Kiang-Hung on the great 

 Camboja river, and close to the frontier of China. 



After this the abnormal fire of exploration, which the forced collision with Ava 

 had developed in the Government, seemed utterly to die out. 



The credit of kindling it again to some extent has been undoubtedly due to the 

 agitation which certain gentlemen have canied on with amazing persistence for 

 many years, in order to promote the opening of an overland trade with China from 

 Rangoon. 



For many centuries a considerable land-trade has been maintained between 

 Western China and the valley of the Irawadi. As long ago as 1459, we find on tlie 

 great Venetian Map of Fra Mauro a rubric attached to a certain point of the upper 

 waters of the river of Ava — " Here goods are transferred from river to river, and 

 so pass on into Catbay." And as early as the first half of the seventeenth century, 

 there is some evidence that the East-India Company had a factory or agent at 

 Bhamo. Of this trade the staple export from China used to be the silk of Ssechuan, 

 and that from Burma cotton ; but many minor articles contributed to its aggregate. 

 The object of the agitation to which I have alluded has been to stimulate the 

 Indian Government to take measures for drawing a similar trade in the produce of 

 Western China to our ports on the Bay of Bengal, and, as necessary for that object, 

 to promote the construction of a railroad from Rangoon to the Cliinese frontier 

 beyond the Mekong. Meantime the trade by the old route from Talifu in Yunnan 

 to Bhamo had ceased ; and to explain this, a slight digression is needful. 



