248 Captain Hannay's Route [April, 



to the Burmese frontier for the purpose of instituting the necessary 

 investigation, and Colonel Burney, the enlightened representative of 

 British interests at that court, failed not to avail himself of the op- 

 portunity thus unexpectedly afforded, of attaching an officer to the 

 mission; and Captain Hannay, who then commanded his escort, was 

 selected for the duty. 



The party, consisting of the newly appointed Burmah governor 

 of Mogaung, of Captain Hannay and several Burmese officers of 

 inferior rank, with a military escort, left Ava on the 22nd of 

 November, 1835, in a fleet of 34 boats of various sizes, for a part 

 of the country which had been uniformly closed against strangers 

 with the most jealous vigilance. " No foreigners," says Captain 

 Hannay, " except the Chinese, are allowed to navigate the Irawadi 

 above the choki of Tsampaynago, situated about seventy miles above 

 Ava ; and no native of the country even is permitted to proceed 

 above that post, excepting under a special license from the Govern- 

 ment. The trade to the north of Ava is entirely in the hands of the 

 Chinese, and the individuals of that nation residing at Ava have 

 always been vigilant in trying to prevent any interference with their 

 monopoly." 



The mission was detained the two following days near the former 

 capital of Amarapura, to complete the quota of troops by which it was 

 to be accompanied, and whose discipline, when they did join, was 

 very soon found to be on a par with their honesty. 



" They work their own boats," says Captain Hannay, " some of 

 which are covered in, and others are quite open. Their musquets 

 (if they deserve the name) are ranged here and there throughout the 

 boat, and are never cleared either from rust or dust, and wet or dry 

 they are left without any covering. Each man carries a canvass bag, 

 which is a receptacle for all sorts of things, including a few bambu 

 cartridges. He wears a black Shan jacket and a head dress or 

 goung-boung of red cotton handkerchief, and thus equipped he is a 

 complete Burmah militia man. They appear on further acquaintance 

 to be better humoured than I at first thought them, but they are sad 

 plunderers, and I pity the owners of the fields of pumkins or beans 

 they come across. I have remarked that whatever a Burman boat- 

 man eats in addition to his rice, is generally stolen." 



Except at Kugyih, where there are said to be several Christian 

 villages, of which, however, no satisfactory information could be 

 obtained, the progress of the mission was unmarked by any circum- 

 stance of interest, until its arrival at Yedan, where they entered the 



