1839.] on the Tenasserim Provinces, $c 993 



The village head men, or Thoogies, were generally elected out of 

 their own tribe, and by bribing them the villagers often succeeded 

 in deceiving their superiors. 



The Tenasserim provinces were a conquered, ruined country, thin- 

 ly peopled by Burmese colonists, which never yielded a considerable 

 revenue to government. Taking the inability of the population for 

 granted, the exactions from Ava were more moderate ; and when 

 the exaction of the governors, and the oppression of government be- 

 came insupportable, part of the population found an asylum in the 

 wilds of the country. It is said to have been a common occurrence 

 for people to abscond with their property into the jungles, and there 

 wait for more auspicious times. So common must have been the 

 practice, that after a fourteen years' peace, and annually strength- 

 ening confidence in the present government, the Kareans to this 

 day cannot be persuaded to come to town, because they have appre- 

 hensions for their personal safety. 



When the rumour spread over the provinces, in 1838, that Thara- 

 waddie's armies were approaching to reconquer the country, the people 

 of Tairy and Ye laid up stores of rice in the jungles, ready to fly 

 at the approach of the foe. 



Their being greatly freed from the influence of priestcraft, as will 

 be shown afterwards, and their having no castes as well, are two 

 additional weighty reasons for speaking in favour of their indepen- 

 dence. Their manliness is ascribable to the same source. The greater 

 portion have often been reduced to extremities in the jungles, where 

 skill and courage were called into play to extricate them from difficul- 

 ties, and they have enough opportunities to this day to exercise this 

 spirit of manliness, in their often protracted wanderings in the pathless 

 wilds of their own country. Out of this state of the country, such as it 

 was under Burmese rule, sprang another characteristic of the people, not 

 less prominent, but not at all praiseworthy ; this is cunning, shrewd- 

 ness, and falsehood. Where people of every rank, from the commonest 

 coolie to the prime minister, had to deal with despots, at whose mercy 

 they were without appeal, and where they had to practise every kind 

 of delusion, to evade the manifold tyrannies which threatened them, 

 cunning and shrewdness were therefore considered virtues of the first 

 magnitude. The common daily bazar proceedings, however, furnish a 

 proof that they are honest enough in mercantile transactions, far more 

 so than their Indian neighbours, and much more than the crafty, trea- 

 cherous Chinese. 



All engagements ought to be ratified in public courts, then they 



