128 Dwellings, works of art, laws, &c. of the Karens. [No. 3, 



Tarns, further north, make matchlocks, some of which that I have seen, 

 are very well done, and sell for thirty rnpees each. They display no 

 ingenuity, however, in these works. They are mere imitations of Shan 

 articles. While the Karens originate nothing, they show as great a 

 capability to imitate, as the Chinese. 1h*J - J- «"•*£ 

 Boys who never saw a chisel or plane or saw, wdl readily learn to u e 

 them, as well as a Chinaman. Men who were called Loo-yamg, wild 

 men " by the Burmese a few years ago, can now do all the work ot a 

 printing office, as well and as readily as Europeans with the same 

 amount of training. Others can use the chain and the prismatic 

 compass in the field, and the plotting scale and protractor, and paint- 

 box in the house, and produce unaided a very creditable plan of a piece 

 of land, while still others can use the sextant, measure heights and 

 distances, take the sun's meridional altitude, and calculate the latitude. 

 Karen women can generally weave, and embroider very prettily ; 

 but there is a tribe or clan in the valley of the Salween, the We-was, 

 in which there was not a single woman of the whole tribe, when the 

 missionaries went first among them, that knew how to weave. They 

 buy all their clothes from the neighbouring tribes, and have no 

 peculiar dress of their own. 



The Karens have a few musical instruments of their own manufac- 

 ture but they are quite rude. They make pipes or whistles out of 

 bamboos ; and bugles out of buffaloes' horns, or the horns of the antelope. 

 They have also harps, guitars, jews'-harps, and a kind of dulcimer. 



They are remarkably fond of the sounds of gongs, and kyee-zees, 

 a taste they have in common with the Shans and Chinese. The Kyee- 

 zee is little known, but it may be described as a large gong, with a 

 cylinder a little less than its own circumference attached to one side; 

 or it may be viewed as a bell-metal drum, with one end open. It is 

 struck like a gong, and gives forth a sound like a gong, but not so 

 shrill. They are manufactured by the Shans, and have ornamental 

 circles and bands with representations of birds and fish ; and on the 

 outer circle are four raised frogs, as the figure of the cat sometimes 

 surmounted the ancient sistrum. Whether the sound of the instru- 

 ment is intended to emulate the voice of the frog or not, must be 

 left to conjecture, for no one can give any reason for the frog being 

 there. 



