FURTHER NOTES ON CHIPPED FLINTS. 259 



same with one made by the nats, blood would come from your 

 nose, and you would die. There was, unfortunately, no means 

 of telling which was which except by the result, so that it was as 

 well to carry about an antidote, which would be found in a ring 

 of pinchbeck, to be worn as an ordinary ring, and to be smelt 

 as soon as your nose began to bleed. 



History is not a strong point with Mongolian people, and it 

 is perhaps useless to look to them for any account of the stone- 

 using tribes whose implements they have copied in iron. 



Yenangyoung is not more than a few hours' journey down the 

 river by steamer from the ruined Buddhist city of Pagan, and, as 

 the crow flies, perhaps not more than fifty miles, and it is hard 

 to suppose that people so far back in civilization as to use flint 

 scrapers and peeling-stones could be contemporaneous with the 

 builders of that great religious centre, whose massive temples, 

 unlike anything else east of the Euphrates, are still the wonder 

 and delight of travellers. Yet, if there is any truth in the 

 Burmese Royal Chronicle, the old kingdom established near 

 Prome came to an end about 95 a.d., and the " Pyu," who formed 

 a portion of that kingdom, fled to the north, and settled, under 

 Thamudarib, nephew of the last king of Prome, at Nyoungoo, 

 i. e. Pagan. 



Whether Pagan was originally begun by settlers from the 

 south, or from Tegoung on the north, it is undoubtedly an 

 ancient site, and was probably a capital from the second century 

 a.d. By the eleventh century it was certainly a celebrated city, 

 with many fine temples, and was a centre of Buddhist learning. 

 Polished celts have been found, if not actually on the site of 

 Pagan, at any rate in the immediate neighbourhood ; so that it 

 seems clear that the Neolithic men in Burma — at any rate, those 

 living on the plains in the vicinity of the Irrawaddy, and who are 

 responsible for the polished celts, and the chert implements at 

 Yenangyoung— must be referred to a date anterior to the 

 Christian era. 



Further search on the spot, and especially the finding of any 

 drawings or carvings, may elucidate something more definite as 

 to their date and identity. 



x2 



