IN THE BURMHA DOMINIONS. I3S 



requires a refpite, and will be obeyed, however much 

 the deiire of gain may ftimulate, and this caufe mud 

 more particularly operate in warm climates to pro- 

 duce what we often improperly call indolence. Even 

 the rigid Cato emphatically fays, that the man who 

 has not time to be idle is a flave. A due confidera- 

 tion of this phyfical and moral neceffity ought per- 

 haps to vindicate religious legiflators from the re- 

 proaches too liberally beftowed on them for fan6lion- 

 jng relaxation ; be that as it may, I think it is fuf- 

 ficiently apparent that the article of wages is alfo ex- 

 aggerated, and that 500 vifs muft only be confidered 

 as the amount produce of working days, and not an 

 average for every day in the year. The labour of the 

 miners, as I have obferved above, is altogether diftinxSl 

 from the oil drawers, and their pay proportioned to the 

 hardfliips and rifks they endure. 



Assuming therefore as data, the acknowledged 

 profit of 1000 tecals per annum for each well, which 

 we can hardly fuppofe exaggerated, as it would ex- 

 pofe the proprietors to an additional tax, and the com- 

 mon wages of precai'ious employment in the country, 

 that is one month with another, including holy days 

 the year round, four and a quarter tecals per month 

 as the pay of the oil drawers, which includes the 

 two extremes of the queftion, it wiJl make the aver^ 

 age produce of each well per diem, 300 vifs or 109,500 

 vifs per annum, equal to 399,675 lbs. avoirdupois, or 

 tons 178,955 lbs. or in liquid meafure 793 hoglheads 

 of hxty- three gallons each ; and as there are 520 

 wells regiftered by government, the grofs amount pro- 

 duce of the whole per annum will be 56,940,000 vifs 

 or 92,781 tons i56olbs. or 412,360 hogllieads, worth 

 at the wells, atone and a quarter tecals per hundred 

 vifs, 711,750 tecals or 889,737 ficca rupees^ 



From the wells, the oil is carrijed, in fmall jars, by 



cooleys, oron carts, to the river.; where it is delivered 



to tjie merchant exporter at two tecals per hundred 



' ' I 4 vif?. 



