132 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
west, not less than fifty in the nearest part, and 
sixty or seventy in the most distant. The vil¬ 
lages and cultivation were here very considera¬ 
ble, but still the appearance of industry was not 
striking, and, judging from the prospect on the 
banks of the river, the soil, although better, was 
still thin, sandy, and remote from fertile. Of 
the cultivation, the most remarkable feature is 
immense groves of palmyra-trees, grown for the 
manufacture of sugar, which, judging from the 
vast number of these palms, must be an exten¬ 
sive article of consumption. The price at Pa- 
k’hok-ko, which is the great mart for it, does 
not, on an average, exceed ten current ticals 
per hundred viss, which, in English money and 
weights, is less than a penny a-pound. 
At two o’clock in the afternoon, we reached 
Yandabo (Ran-ta-po), near which we stayed two 
hours, laying in a stock of wood, sufficient for 
our consumption to Ava. Here, for the first 
time, we met a country extensively cultivated 
and clear of forest, extending from the banks 
of the river to a low range of hills lying south¬ 
east of it. This is the place at which the con¬ 
ferences were held, and the treaty of peace con¬ 
cluded, in February last. The large tree was 
pointed out to us, under which was the tent of 
the Commander of the British army, and in 
