54 JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
and Sahlaydan (Thale-tan, either sandy or po¬ 
megranate row). About eleven o’clock we 
passed the large village of Shwe-taong, (golden 
hill,) which has the rank of a Myo, or town. 
The bank is here, at present, from ten to fif¬ 
teen feet above the level of the river ; and so 
steep as to make it necessary to cut steps in 
it, in order to reach the water conveniently. 
Here again we saw the teak, the trees much 
higher than at Kyok-taran. It is probable that 
at both places they have been planted for shade 
and ornament, and are not of natural growth 
Dr. Buchanan Hamilton states, that in one part 
of Shwe-taong he observed some young teak- 
trees. It is not at all improbable but that 
those which we now observed, and which were 
sixty feet high, were the identical plants no¬ 
ticed by him thirty-one years before. We were 
informed that the teak forests were here three 
or four miles distant from the river. Shwe- 
taong, and its dependencies, formed the assign¬ 
ment made to the present King and his fa¬ 
ther, for their maintenance, when they were 
heirs to the throne. It has consequently en¬ 
joyed some peculiar protection ; and is, there¬ 
fore, comparatively a flourishing place. We 
saw a good number of boats, some of them 
trading vessels, drawn up along the bank. We 
