1839] on the Tenasserim Provinces, Sfc. 979 



vinces. Constant changes in Indo-China. — The stability of China 

 Proper and Japan for so many centuries, forms a remarkable contrast 

 to the constant and total changes which have happened in the adjoin- 

 ing countries comprised under the name of Indo-China, the constituent 

 parts of which, are Cochin-China, Tonkin, Cambogia, Anjam or Loas, 

 Siam, and Burmah. One race of people destroyed the other, and was 

 again expelled and supplanted like the former, by subsequent con- 

 querors. The kingdoms just mentioned as they exist at present, 

 are erected upon the ruin of vanquished nations, whose history even, 

 is frequently lost. 



Alompra's Empire.— The territories of the Burmese empire had 

 the same fate ; and the present dynasty of Burmah is but of recent 

 origin. Alompra, assisted by favourable circumstances, after many 

 struggles, bloodshed, and devastation, finally overthrew Pegu, and 

 established a new kingdom at Amarapoora, carrying from thence his 

 victorious arms over a wide extent of country. 



History of Tenasserim. — The history of the Tenasserim provinces is 

 involved in darkness. Who the first inhabitants were can scarcely 

 even be guessed at, for it is not known who the inhabitants were four 

 centuries ago. To judge from the Kareans inhabiting the interior, 

 who seem to have outlived all revolutions of the successive conquests, 

 and following analogy, whatever inhabitants there were they seem to 

 have belonged to Mongolic races. Burmah as well as Siam and 

 Cambogia, seem to have been originally peopled from the north, and 

 it is very improbable that the inhabitants of Tenasserim were ever 

 mixed with Malay blood. The comparatively late arrival of that race 

 from Menamcaboo in Sumatra, in the Malay peninsula, in the dis- 

 tricts of Jabor, Malacca, and Queda, where they formed colonies, is now 

 almost universally adopted as a fact approaching to certainty, and if 

 so, they had no time to disperse themselves towards the north. 



Two hundred years ago the inhabitants seem to have been of 

 Talian extraction, somewhat related to Siam ; and Martaban is men- 

 tioned by the Portuguese as a place of great commercial importance ; 

 the town of Tenasserim was an important fortress. The provinces re- 

 mained under Siamese dominion until the latter part of the eighteenth 

 century, when Alompra, the conqueror, took possession of them ; and 

 notwithstanding the repeated contests and incursions of the Siamese, 

 they remained a part of the Burman empire until they were incorpo- 

 rated with the British empire in the east, in the year 1826. 



Change of population . — With new conquerors arrived new settlers. 

 After Alompra's conquest the Siamese seem altogether to have with- 



