22 The Remains at .Pagan. [No. 1. 



communication we must go further back for it. And the points 

 of resemblance are rather to Roman architecture, properly so called, 



identified with Tenasserim. There are abundant difficulties in the way of either 

 interpretation. 



It is an interesting subject, but a great deal more learning and leisure than I 

 possess would be required to discuss it properly. Two arguments, however, may 

 be mentioned which appear strongly to favour Gosselin's theory. Ptolemy de- 

 scribes the various rivers of the Chersonesus as mutually communicating, a cir- 

 cumstance which could not apply to the Malay Peninsula, but which applies 

 excellently to the waters of the Delta. These rivers, whose embouchures he names 

 Chrysoana, Palanda and Attabas, would therefore be three of the principal outlets 

 of the Irawadee. Again, immediately westward of the Chersonesus he places the 

 Sinus Sabaricus, and in this gulph the mouths of the river Besynga. Now, a 

 little below, in his sketch of the hydrography of India beyond the Ganges, the 

 Geographer says distinctly ; " From the range of Mseandrus flow down all the 

 rivers beyond Ganges, until you come to the river Besynga." This remark seems 

 infallibly to identify Mons Mseandrus with the Aracan Yomadoung and the river 

 Besynga with the Bassein branch of the Irawadee. 



The Kev. Mr. Mason in his valuable book, " The Natural Productions of Bur- 

 ma"* following the more common arrangement of maps of ancient geography, 

 which makes the Sinus Sabaricus represent the Gulph of Martaban, traces Be- 

 synga in the Solwen, called by the Talaings Be-lchung. But it may be suggested 

 that Bathein-khyoung (river of Bassein, in Burmese) affords at least as strong a 

 resemblance. And it is curious that this very gulph of Negrais, which we take 

 to be the Sinus Sabaricus, is called by several of the old travellers " the Sea 

 of Bara."f 



Where the data are so vague, attempts at the identification of names are rather 

 amusing than profitable. But a few may be mentioned. Sada suits in locality 

 as well as name with Sandoway, which is mentioned at a very early period of 

 Burmese history.^ Zabai has been identified by Gosselin with Tavoy. In 

 Ptolemy's hst of inland cities to the north of the Chersonesus occurs the name 

 of Mareura metropolis. The identity of this has been suggested§ with the ancient 

 city of Mauroya i which, as Col. Burney tells us from the Burman histories, pre- 



* Published at Mauhnain 1856. See under the head of Ethnology, p. 427. 



f Vide Caesar Frederick in Purchas, II. 1717 and Gasparo Balbi, id. p. 1724. 

 At the same time, be it said, I feel some misgiving that this Bara may be only 

 the Bar of Negrais. In Wood's map, at the beginning of Syme's Narrative, one of 

 the mouths of the Irawadee is called Barago, and I believe Barago Point is still the 

 name given by mariners to the extreme point of the delta. 



X See Col. Burney in J. A. S. B. V. 163. 



§ By Col. Hannay in his Sketch of the Singphos, 1847, p. 32, and by Mr. 

 Mason, I. p. 445. 



