2(> The Remains at Pagan. [No. 1. 



formed into pilasters such as we have spoken of supportiug a regu- 



(Maha-chhi doubtless, a name often applied in India to the little known Eastern 

 kingdoms indiscriminately). He is the first traveller, I believe, who mentions the 

 while elephant, and the name of Ava, which has not existed a century.* He 

 speaks also of the Burmese fashion of tattooing the body, as common both with 

 men and women. The latter do not now practise it, though among their Khyen 

 neighbours it is almost confined to the women. 



Di Conti makes the singular statement that the people in their daily prayer said, 

 " God in Trinity keep us in his Law." This, which at first sight looks like fic- 

 tion, is really an evidence of his veracity. He had doubtless heard of " the three 

 precious ones," the triad of Buddha, Dharma, and Sang a, the Buddha, the Law, 

 and the Clergy ; (see note by Eemusat in Pilgrimage of Ea-hian, Cal. 1848, 

 p. 42).f 



In 1496, Pegu was visited by Hieronymo da Santo Stephano, a Genoese, who 

 is, I believe, the first European by whom Pegu is distinctly mentioned. He speaks 

 of it as a great city ruled by a " Gran Signore" who possessed 10,000 elephants. 

 He was prevented from visiting Ava by war between the two nations.^ 



About the same time or a little later, we find at Pegu another traveller, Lo- 

 dovico Barthema of Bologna. He gives few interesting particulars, but mentions 

 " great canes" (bamboos) "as large as a barrel," and like all the travellers to these 

 parts, speaks much of the rubies, the original locality of which they all assign to 

 a city, or mountainous region called Capelan, beyond Ava. He also speaks of 

 Pegu and Ava as at war.§ 



With the extension of European discovery in the beginning of the 16th century, 

 European traders and Portuguese adventurers began to haunt the coasts of Pegu. 

 The first Portuguese traveller known to us is Ruy Nunez d'Acunha, who was sent 

 thither by Alphonso d' Albuquerque in 1511. || 



* He is also the first traveller who mentions a strange, obscene, and barbarous 

 custom, which is spoken of so repeatedly by all travellers during the next 200 

 years, that it seems impossible to doubt its having existed, though I believe there 

 is not now the slightest trace of it ; unless the practice be so, which some of the 

 Burmese warriors are said to retain, of inserting a piece of metal under the flesh 

 to make themselves invulnerable. Some old travellers ascribe to the Siamese 

 and Shans as well as the Burmese, the custom alluded to. The prevalence of 

 such a custom seems a strong corroboration of the idea expressed by Ritter (JErd- 

 Jcunde V. 171,) that the Burmans have not long emerged from barbarism. There 

 is a deep element of barbarism in the Burman character, but looking to Pagan 

 and other evidences, it may be doubted whether their civilization, such as it is, 

 was not fully greater eight centuries ago, than one century ago. The modified 

 practice referred to above is witnessed to by Mr. Howard Malcom, who was al- 

 lowed by one of the Christian converts at Ava to take several amulets of gold 

 from under the skin of his arm. (I. 307.) 



t In the letter which the king of Ava wrote to the Governor General in 1830, 

 His Majesty speaks of his " observing the three objects of worship, namely, God, 

 his precepts, and his attendant or priests," (Buddha, Dharma and Sanga.) 



X Ramusio Navigationi et Viaggi, Yenetia MDLXIII. I. p. 345. 



§ Ditto Ditto, p. 165. || Purchas, II. 1681. 



