1018 Journal of an expedition from Moulmien to Ava. |Dec 



on orders from thence. My audience lasted about an hour.. and a half, 

 and when I left him he gave in return for the presents I had brought 

 him, a pair of grey ponies. 



On the 30th March I called on the Tseet-kay. As nothing had been 

 heard of the Meng-len-gyee party I urged my immediate departure, 

 as in case of being stopped by the robber chiefs on the way to Ava 

 and obliged to return by the way we came, we should be thrown into 

 the rains; some of the hills between the Thalween and Meng-len- 

 gyeis would be nearly impassable, and the jungles there at that season 

 are so unhealthy that on my last mission out of between fifty and sixty 

 people, myself and two others only escaped fever either on the road or 

 after our return. He begged me not to suppose he wished to throw 

 any obstacles in my way, but advised me again to return by the road 

 I had come ; as my mind was made up to go on, he wished me to 

 wait till the fifth or sixth of next month, when a part of the Shan 

 contingent of troops furnished by the Tso-boa are to march on to Ava, 

 (the son of the late Yea-woon of Rangoon having come in six days 

 from the capital with an order to that effect,) and with that force we 

 should be too powerful for any of the parties on the road. 



On the 2nd of April I received the Tso-boa's letter, but as there was 

 a paragraph stating that in future, traders should not come here with- 

 out a pass from Ava, I waited on the Tseet-kay with the treaty of Ava, 

 and pointed out that by the first article of that treaty, which an order 

 of the king could not do away with, British subjects had a right to 

 trade to any part of the empire. He immediately promised that it 

 should be altered as it had been written in misconstruction of the 

 orders from Ava, to which Col. Burney had agreed, that no officer 

 should enter the kingdom in this direction without leave first obtain- 

 ed from Ava. He informed me that orders had come to day for the 

 Tso-boa to proceed in person with 1,500 men. 



On the 3rd I called on the Tso-boa. There is a decided disinclina- 

 tion for the service. He has however determined to leave this on 

 the 6th, expressing himself pleased with the arrangement of my 

 accompanying him, and promising all the assistance in his power on 

 the road. Some of the most adventurous of the traders had deter- 

 mined to accompany me ; I however dissuaded them and desired them 

 to remain together. On the 5 th when I called on the Tseet-kay to 

 take leave, I took the chief of the traders with me and recommended 

 him to his care, which he promised and we parted good friends. He 

 made a speech which he intended for a sort of an apology for his first 

 reception of me, and hoped he should see me here again. 



