694 An account of some of the Petty States [Nov, 



" Left Laioung this morning (15th), at 6 a. m., and in five hours and a half 

 reached Zimmay about N. 30° West of the former place. The Mein Neaung 

 Tso-boa came to see us off, and brought with him a person sent as a guide, 

 though many of the people with me were known to be acquainted with the road. 

 He took us through the fields, a path he evidently did not know himself, under 

 pretence of breakfast being prepared for the people at some village by the way, 

 and I ultimately regained the road by the direction of some Talien people we 

 met. The whole of the road lay through a rich and cultivated country, irrigated 

 by a water-course from the May-ping, the main trunk of which is some seven or 

 eight miles in length, and thirty or forty feet in width, by eight or nine in depth, 

 as far as we travelled along the bank of it. At 8 a. m. came on the banks of the 

 water-course, and at 10 crossed the May-ping at a ford of considerable breadth, 

 but at this season only reaching to the poney's saddle. On the Zimmay side 

 found some officers waiting to conduct me to the zayat or tay, which we found 

 to be a rattle-trap of a wooden building, forty-five feet by twenty-five, surround- 

 ed by an eight feet verandah a foot lower, with four small rooms on each side, 

 in which the people were housed. These buildings shut out every breath of 

 air ; which, as the thermometer was 103° at mid-day and 80 at 8 p. m. was any 

 thing but comfortable. The floor was of split planks laid on without rails or 

 fastening, and as the people crowded up to look at me, the rattling was unsup- 

 portable. As 1 would get no relief from this annoyance by complaint, I was 

 ultimately obliged to drive them down by force ; after which they did not ven- 

 ture further than the steps of the zayat. The zayat, which is about a quarter of a 

 mile from the town, was surrounded by drunken holiday-making people, singing, 

 and hallooing, and shouting till about 12 o'clock, one of whom came close to 

 the zayat and abused us. My people pursued him to a neighbouring house, 

 which I was just in time to prevent them breaking into, and I denounced the 

 occupier to the police in the morning. 



" On the 16th, the brother-in-law of the Chow-Houa and some other officers 

 paid me a visit of ceremony, bringing a present of rice, sugar-cane, &c. with the 

 gratulations of the Tso-boa at my arrival, and expressing his and their good-will 

 towards the English. They remained about an hour. Before they left, I com- 

 plained of the annoyance of the rabble, which they promised to remove. The 

 forcible ejectment of the rabble yesterday left me at tolerable peace to-day till 

 the evening, when the wife of the Ken-Toung Tso-boa came to visit me, and such 

 a number of women came under her protection that the floor of one of the 

 passages gave way with them, but fortunately no accident occurred. I hear 

 nothing but complaints on all sides of the rascality of the cattle-merchants 

 employed by the contractor to buy his cattle. They are old boat lascars, dis- 

 charged peons, and thieves from the jail, to whom he has had the folly to entrust 

 more money than they ever saw before. Considering themselves rich, they 

 have bought wives and slaves, and dissipated part of the money ; and as they 

 cannot return to Maulamyne, they sell the property at what they can get for it. 

 Some of them have picked up the Shan language, and act as interpreters to 

 strangers arriving from the coast, get their property into their hands and appro- 

 priate the proceeds. The presents they are enabled to make at this (to them) 

 cheap rate, and the knowledge of the language, sets them above the fear of 

 punishment. On the morning of the 17th, in consequence of my complaint of 



