1857.] The Remains at Pagan. 29 



These cornices and basements are, in almost all the bnildings, 



ing of the Peguan monarchy at this time. Yet Frederick, and Fitch who fol- 

 lowed him a few years later, are men who give a sober and true account of other 

 matters, in which we still may compare their descriptions with facts as they are.* 



It may perhaps be remarked that only at the end of the last century the 

 spectacles of Col. Symes appear to have shewn him in Burma a magnificent and 

 civilised empire, including a population which he estimated at seventeen millions. 

 Later experience has proved that the Colonel's view of the magnificence and 

 civilisation was as exaggerated as his estimate of the population. 



But making allowance for a similar tendency to the over-estimation of so dis- 

 tant a region by the older travellers, in reading their narratives it is impossible 

 to resist the conviction that the lower provinces at least of the Irawadee exhibited 

 in the 16th century a much more flourishing and wealthy community than now 

 exists in the delta, and we have, in the subsequent history of the country, the 

 causes of a great deterioration. The splendour of the Peguan monarchy was 

 very short-lived. In the time of the son of the conquering prince came a suc- 

 cession of internal and external wars, during which the country was harassed 

 and devastated, both by the cruelties of the savage king, and by invasions from 

 Arracan, Siam, Toungoo and Ava, by all which Pegu was reduced to the depths 

 of desolation and misery ; insomuch that Purchas, in a curious chapter " on the 

 destruction and desolation of Pegu,"f collected from the writings of numerous 

 eye-witnesses his contemporaries, thinks it appropriate to observe, that "the 

 natives of Pegu are not quite extinct, but many of them are fled into other king- 

 doms." Notices of the history of Pegu are defective during the greater part of 

 the 17th century, and I do not know what further wars took place during that 

 period. But towards the middle of the century following came its temporary 

 re- assertion of independence and even of supremacy, and its rapidly succeeding 

 subjection to the vengeance of Alompra. It is not surprising that Pegu should 

 never have recovered from calamities so repeated and disastrous. History 

 scarcely justifies the expectation that countries should recover, even in long 

 periods of comparative repose, from such universal and thorough devastation. 

 And the habits of the Burman races are not favourable to increase of population. 

 A singularly small portion of their children live to maturity. J 



* See for instance Frederick's vivid and accurate account of the bore in the 

 Bitang, {Purchas, II. 1716,) which I have lately had the opportunity of com- 

 paring with that of a good observer, Mr. T. Login. 



t V. p. 500. 



% I have just read in the course of my ordinary duties a report by Mr. T. 

 Login on a projected canal to the Sitang, from the Pegu river at a point below 

 the ancient capital. He speaks incidentally of traces of extensive cultivation in 

 tracts which now scarcely shew two souls to the square mile. The vast ruined 

 pagoda of Mahkau, of which Mr. Login speaks in the same report, doubtless 

 represents the site of the castle of Maccao, mentioned by the old travellers as 



