1000 Dr. Heifer's Third Report [Dec. 



tion to the means of maintaining them. The generality however are 

 content with one wife at a time, and the bad effects of polygamy are 

 confined to the comparatively small number of the wealthy. Marriage 

 is contracted easily. The difficulties in over peopled countries, where a 

 certain settlement or occupation in life, or a certainty of income is 

 necessary, before people marry, are not experienced, here where 

 every body if he like, can maintain a wife and family with ease 

 Polygamy and faithlessness, divide and loosen the affections of parents 

 toward their children, yet it has been stated that the Burmese doat on 

 their children ; and it is a strange anomoly, which is however daily seen 

 at Maul main, that a Burmese has a particular predilection for a fair 

 child by his wife, even when he is well aware that it is a spurious 

 offspring. This is, however, only the case amongst the lower classes. 

 We have not yet any proof, how children by English fathers and 

 Burmese mothers will turn out when grown up, the intercourse be- 

 tween the two nations having subsisted but fourteen years; if we how- 

 ever may judge from what the children promise at present, we should 

 be inclined to anticipate that they will be superior to the progeny of 

 Europeans by Indian women. 



Religious establishment for the education of the children. — Poly- 

 gamy and connubial faithlessness have also in general bad effects upon 

 the education of children, diminishing the care and attachment which 

 ought to be felt. The religious institutions of the country have pro- 

 vided for this case. The children are at an early age placed in mo- 

 nasteries, established at almost every village, and endowed by the 

 voluntary contributions of the inhabitants. There the children remain 

 for a certain period of their boyhood, where they are fed by the 

 monks, and instructed in reading, writing, and religious rites. 



This is the education which almost all Burmese attain, but they 

 seldom know more ; hence the general diffusion of elementary know- 

 ledge, and general ignorance in the higher attainments of science, 

 and the great uniformity of knowledge throughout Burmah. 



Knowledge of the priests. — The Pomgys, or priests, are considered 

 the learned men of the nation ; but their knowledge consisting in the 

 explanation of theological and metaphysical doctrines, is therefore 

 mystical, but the more appreciated by the vulgar majority, because 

 incomprehensible. 



Religion. — The peculiarities and characteristics of a nation are 

 mostly intimately connected with their religion. Religion either digni- 

 fies or degrades the human character. In considering the religion of the 

 inhabitants of these countries, we must form a distinction between 



