JOURNAL 



OF 



THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



No. 64.— April, 1837- 



I. — Abstract of the Journal of a Route travelled by Capt. S. F. Hannat, 

 of the 40th Regiment Native Infantry, from the Capital of Ava to the 

 Amber Mines of the Hdkong valley on the South-east frontier of 

 Assam. By Capt. R. Boileau Pemberton, 44th Regt. N. /. 



[With a Route Map of the country north of Ava.~\ 



From the termination of the Burmese war to the present period 

 the spirit of inquiry has never slept, and the most strenuous exertions 

 have been made by the officers employed on the eastern frontier to 

 extend our geographical knowledge to countries scarcely known but 

 by name, and to acquire some accurate information regarding the 

 manners, customs, and languages of the various races of men by 

 whom they are inhabited. 



The researches of Captains Bedford, Wilcox, andNisupviLLE, and 

 of Lieut. Burlton in Assam, dispelled the mist which had previously 

 rested on the whole of the eastern portion of that magnificent valley ; 

 and the general direction and aspect of its mountain barriers, the 

 courses and relative size of its rivers, the habits of the innumerable 

 tribes who dwell on the rugged summits of its mountains, or on the 

 alluvial plains at their base, were then first made the subject of de- 

 scription, founded, not on the vague reports of half-civilized savages, 

 but on the personal investigations of men, whose scientific attainments 

 enabled them to fix with precision the geographical site of every 

 locality they visited. The journey of Wilcox and Burlton to the 

 sources of the Irawadi river had proved the absence of communi- 

 cation between it and the great Tsanpo of Thibet, but they were 

 unable to prosecute their examination further east ; and though their 

 researches had extended to a point not more than twenty miles dis- 

 2 K 



