1841.] Account of Arahan. 693 



comb placing hill." Akyah is a very regularly built town ; the streets 

 are broad, and all run at right angles to each other ; the houses are of 

 flimsy materials, being built only of bamboo and canes of the nipah 

 tree, but they are spacious and airy, and being elevated a few feet 

 above the ground, are admirably adapted to the damp climate of 

 Arakan, The population of Aki/ab does not exceed 5,000 souls, 

 excluding some villages which form the suburbs. 



The whole of the land of Arakan, whether forest, cultivated or 

 fallow, is the property of the state ; but as it seldom happens that the 

 state has cause to assert its claim, the great mass of land is trans- 

 ferred by sale from hand to hand, or inherited from generation to 

 generation, like other property. Every man who purposes bringing 

 waste land into cultivation, gives notice of his intention to the rawa- 

 goung ; either that officer, or the cultivator himself if he pleases, 

 informs the officer in charge of the district, and the land tax is re- 

 mitted for two or more years, according to the nature of the soil, 

 and the jungle to be cleared. Cultivation and occupation of land give 

 a prescriptive right to a cultivator as long as he pays the Government 

 demand upon it, but if he abandon it without entering into an ar- 

 rangement with any body else to keep it in cultivation, or to pay the 

 Government demand, he forfeits his right to it. The cultivator 

 then has the possession, but not the property of the soil. By custom 

 a distinction is made between rice land, and that which has been enclos- 

 ed for gardens. If a portion of the former be taken for public 

 purposes, a road for instance, the common law of the country gives the 

 cultivator compensation ; but in the case of gardens, the owner is 

 entitled to the value of every tree and shrub they contain ; all produce 

 being bona fide his private property. Some cultivators make over 

 their land to others for a year or more, if from any cause they are unable 

 to cultivate themselves ; if their land be very productive, or have 

 any peculiar advantages of position, they receive a rent for it from 

 the sub-tenant which frequently equals the Government demand ; these 

 arrangements among the people are not interfered with ; the former 

 tenant's name remains in the village register, and he is responsible 

 for the Government tax, unless he has formally given notice to the 

 rawa-goung, that he is not going to cultivate. On the death of a 

 cultivator, his land is inherited by his heirs in like manner as if it were 



