696 Account of Arakan. [No. 117. 



anchors alongside the field that has grown the rice. It is principally 

 exported to Madras, Coringa, and Masulipatam. A reference to table B 

 will shew the rapid increase of the Akyah rice trade ; we there see a 

 population of less than 1,50,000 souls, growing and exporting grain to 

 the value of eleven and a half lakhs of rupees. Only one rice crop is 

 raised in the year. The tax on gardens is higher than that on rice 

 land, being at the rate of 16 rupees per doon. 



Wages in Arakan^ compared with those of Bengal, are very high. 

 For ordinary labour the people of the country cannot be hired at a less 

 rate than four annas a-day, or if by the month, six rupees ; though 

 for some sorts of work they demand seven to eight rupees a month. In 

 the reaping season, which generally commences in December, many 

 hundreds, indeed thousands of coolies come from the Chittagong 

 district by land and by sea, to seek labour and high wages. They are 

 engaged by the Arakanese cultivators, and are generally paid at a certain 

 rate for the quantity of rice cut down. If they work diligently, I am 

 informed they can earn from four to five annas per diem ; in their own 

 country their labour for the same time would not bring them more 

 than six pice, or at the most two annas. The Bengalee labourers are 

 not much employed in ploughing the land ; that work is performed in 

 the rainy season (about the middle of June) at the commencement of 

 which they for the most part return to their homes. They are begin- 

 ning however to seek employment also in ploughing land. One great 

 source of loss to the cultivators, is the frequent occurrence of a mur- 

 rain among their cattle, by which thousands sometimes perish in a sin- 

 gle year. In 1839-40 a sickness prevailed among the cattle, simulta- 

 neously with the cholera among the inhabitants, by which 16,000 head, 

 cows and buffaloes, were carried off. The cattle are replaced from 

 Chittagong and also from Ava. I have been much interested at wit- 

 nessing the cheerfulness and determination with which a cultivator 

 would set to work at his field by spade, after losing his buffaloes, worth 

 perhaps from 40 to 50 rupees the pair, determined to labour hard in 

 order to replace them as soon as possible. 



A measure has lately been sanctioned by government for the whole 

 f)rovince of Arakan^ which is calculated to extend largely the cul- 

 tivation of jungle tracts, and perhaps eventually alter the tenure of 

 all land in the country. Rules have been passed for grants of large 



