]857.] The Remains at Pagan. 31 



study and comparison of the remains of the unrepaired and unbar- 

 very faire and great Towne with faire houses of stone" which is remarkable, if 

 true. 



From the accounts of all the travellers of this period we derive the impression 

 of a thriving trade in the ports of Pegu. Martaban, we are told by Frederick 

 and Fitch, was frequented by many ships from Malacca, Sirian by ships from 

 Mecca (Mocha probably) and Achen, Cosmin by ships from Bengal, St. Thome 

 (Madras) and Masulipatam. 



Fitch was at Pegu in the end of 1586, and the kingdom seems still to have 

 stood in its glory.* 



But only eleven years later, in 1598, Nicholas Pimenta, Visitor of the Jesuits 

 in India, relates the destruction of the Peguan monarchy, and the miserable 

 state of the country, as reported to him by ships which arrived at St. Thome 

 when he was organizing a Mission for Pegu. 



In March 1600, Boves, another Jesuit, writes that he was in the country 

 when the king besieged by the kings of Arracan and Toungoo surrendered, and 

 was put to death. " It is a lamentable spectacle," says the Padre, " to see the 

 banks of the rivers, set with infinite fruit-bearing trees, now overwhelmed with 

 ruins of gilded temples and noble edifices ; the ways and fields full of sculls and 

 bones of wretched Peguans, killed or famished, and cast into the river in such 

 numbers that the multitude of carcases prohibiteth the way and passage of any 

 ships ; to omit the burnings and massacres committed by this, the cruellest tyrant 

 that ever breathed."f 



After his victory, the king of Arracan made over the port of Syrian to Philip de 

 Brito, a Portuguese partisan leader.J De Brito, however, quarrelled with the 

 king of Arracan, and went to Groa to obtain the support of the Viceroy. During 

 his absence his followers proclaimed him king of Pegu. He continued to carry 

 things with a high hand for some years, capturing the son of his former patron 

 the king of Arracan, for whom he demanded a ransom of 50,000 crowns ;§ and 

 sometime afterwards he treacherously seized the person find treasure of the king 

 of Toungoo, || with whom he had made alliance. In 1610 a traveller says of de 

 Brito ; " He yet also domineereth and careth for nobodie."lf He had married his 

 son Simon to a daughter of the king of Martaban,* which province had appa- 



* Purchas, Vol. II. 



t Boves in Purchas, II. 1748. 



X Do. Do. 



§ Hist, of Disc, and Conq. of India by the Portuguese, III. 138 etc. and Pur- 

 chas, V. p. 514. 



|| Hence called by the Burmese Kala-ya-men, "The king whom the Kalas 

 seized." Col. Burney in J. A. S. B. IV. 404. 



% Relations of strange occurrents by Peter Williamson Floris : in Purchas, I. 

 322. 



# Mist. ofDiscov. and Conq. as above. 



