1844 ] On the History of Arakan. 33 



were in the human shape, others were Bhi-lus ; these Bhi-lus ravaged 

 the country, devouring men and women ; at length the last king of the 

 Pun-na race was destroyed by them, but the queen and a princess 

 were saved. 



This legend perhaps refers to the warfare the Burman race had to 

 wage against the aborigines, the present savage hill tribes, who already 

 possessed the country when they themselves entered it, and who pro- 

 bably long after struggled for independence. The Bhi-lus are describ- 

 ed as lying in ambush, and seizing all who ventured out of their houses 

 after dark: the description in fact much resembles that of a partisan 

 warfare carried on against invaders. The names given to some of these 

 Bhi-lus, bear a resemblance to names common among the Ka-mi tribe 

 to this day ; and their fabled origin from wild animals of a forest far to 

 the North, beyond the source of the Kula-dan river, agrees pretty 

 nearly with the present received opinions of the Rakhaings concerning 

 the Ka-mis, viz. that they originally came from the North, and are little 

 better than wild beasts. 



To remedy this sad state of affairs, a hero at length appears to the 

 rescue of the Myam-ma race, whose birth is thus traced. 



In the country of Kap-pila-wot,* reigned a powerful king named 

 Adz-dzun-na who determined to abandon his kingdom and become a 

 hermit. He retired to the Hi-ma- won-da forest, and wandering on 

 Southwards, reached at length the source of the Kula-dan river ; 

 there he determined to live far from human habitations in devout re- 

 tirement under the shade of a pipal tree. The wild animals came to 

 do him homage, and amidst a herd of deer, appears a doe called In-da. 

 ma-yu, described as descended from a lion, which in a former existence 

 had been wife to the king Adz-dzum-na ; it had been foretold by Nats 

 that as the country We-tha-li, (Arakan) suffered from Bhi-lus born of 

 a deer, so should it be rescued and restored by a man produced from 

 the same animal. A violent tempest arises ; the doe In-da-ma-yu, is 

 carried by a flood down the Kula-dan, and cast ashore near the mouth 

 of the Mi-khyoung, a tributary stream which joins the Kula-dan in its 

 upper course ; there in the midst of the forest she brings forth a hu- 



* A city in Hindoostan (Capilavastie, in Rohilkhand.) 



E 



