100S Journal of an expedition from Moulmxen to Ava. [Dec-, 



able to any great extent with our present means of transport. Tin is 

 to be bought there for 50 rupees per 1 00 viss, and will fetch in the 

 market here about 80 rupees, there is at present however but little 

 demand for it. Stick-lac may be bought at 200 rupees the 100 bas- 

 kets, weighing on an average 22 viss or 70 odd pounds, and sells here 

 from 880 to 1100 rupees. 



On the 13th of February we reached Kudoo a stockaded village of 

 about 80 or 100 houses, half of which may be within the stockade. It 

 is called a military station though there are no regular troops here, 

 indeed the Kareens till within the last two years were constantly in the 

 habit of carrying off the people from the very gates of the stockade, 

 which now pay them a sort of black mail, as their own government 

 cannot protect them ; here we halted one day to rest the elephants. 

 The people exposed some of their goods for sale but had few or no 

 purchasers. 



On the 15th we left Kudoo and passed the small village of Salaung 

 of 15 or 20 houses of catechu boilers quite as poor as the Kareens, 

 and Ban-hat of 120 houses of rather more respectable appearance. 



On the 18th February we reached Mok-mai. Both the above vil- 

 lages are under Kayennee influence, and the last from which the head 

 men came out to meet me forms the limit of the journeys of the Chi- 

 nese caravans in this direction. Mok-mai is a stockaded town of 

 perhaps 300 or 350 houses, the residence of one of the Tso-boas of 

 Camboza (a general term for the Shan states in this quarter). I halted 

 about a mile from the town, and sent the guide furnished me at the 

 last village, to notify my arrival, and request to know where I should 

 pitch my tents. He returned and told me I might either come into 

 the town or encamp near a Poon-gyee house outside. As there was 

 a feast in the town, I preferred the latter as more out of the way of 

 the noisy curiosity of the people. I could not however have fared 

 much worse any where, for all the inhabitants of the place poured out 

 to look at me. When I reached the halting-place, such a crowd had 

 collected that it was scarcely possible to unload the elephants ; and 

 before this was done they had become so riotous and insulting that I 

 was obliged to send in to the Tso-boa for protection. He sent one of 

 his Atween-woons and some peons who after some trouble and a good 

 deal of rataning which the Atween-woon applied himself, we were en- 

 abled to pitch the tent. 



A Than-dau-tseen came out in the evening to ask me for a list of the 

 presents, to inquire the object of my visit, and to request me to re- 

 main here a day to give them time to report to the head Burman 



