86 Br Hamilton on a Map of the Country North from Ava. 
space occupied by woods and mountains, in which no cities are 
laid down on any authority which I possess ; and the first towns 
to which we come in this direction are Boduoen, Seinni, Taun- 
bain, Sibho, and Sounzha, all towns, I think, in the valley of 
the Mringngash. This mountainous space, I have no doubt, is 
the Pahimapan of the Modern Universal History (vol. vii. p. 153.) 
The only place in this extensive space laid down in the accom- 
panying Map, is Momeit, perhaps twenty British miles road dis- 
tance from Kiangnap, and twelve from Tagaun ; and near this 
are the principal Ruby Mines in the empire, or I believe in the 
world ; but to this I shall have another occasion to return. 
Beyond these eastern towns of the Mrelap Shan, mentioned 
in the last paragraph, this Map does not extend, although the 
territory dependent on them reaches to the river Saluasn, and, 
according to the divisions of the empire which existed in 1795, 
extended in some parts beyond that river. It is in the space 
between Sibho, Taunbain, Seinni, and the Salujen, that there is 
an extensive region containing forests or thickets of the tea-tree, 
which tlie Mi’anmas call Lapsek, and the Portuguese of India 
name Champok (See Modern Universal History ^ vol. vii. p.l29.) 
These woods are inhabited by a tribe of Shan called Palaun, 
by v/hom the tea-leaves, in place of being dried for infusion, as 
is done by the Chinese and Japanese, are pickled for being 
chewed, and the quantity of this pickle consumed all over the 
empire is very great. 
It is not to be conceived, that the greater part of the moun- 
tainous and \voody regions in the Eastern Peninsula of India 
are wastes ; on the contrary, in general they abound in inhabi- 
tants, the rude aborigines of the country, and are often more 
productive than the cleared plains, as the people are more ad- 
dicted to agriculture than the more civilised races, who chiefly 
occupy towns, and live mostly by manufactures, fishing, and 
commerce, exchanging their commodities with the rude tribes 
for grain. The rude tribes, on the contrary, are diligent cultiva- 
tors, clearing the forests in succession after long fallows, and 
thus procuring very plentiful crops from the lands enriched by 
rotten foliage and rest. These people have no towns, but live 
under their own native chiefs, protected in a considerable degree 
by their woods and mountains from the oppression of the mush- 
