158 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
about four hundred and fifty houses, or fami¬ 
lies. With respect to the tax on houses or 
families, some are altogether exempted from 
the payment of taxes to the Myo-sa, or lord; 
and others pay from six to twenty ticals of 
flowered silver. Upon what principle this va¬ 
rious assessment is made we could not learn. 
Most probably it is dictated chiefly by favour¬ 
itism. Its inequality is, at all events, an obvi¬ 
ous evil. Within the estate there is a small 
lake, which we understood to be the hereditary 
property of one of the villagers. The fishery 
of it is very poor, and will not rent for more 
than forty ticals of flowered silver a-year. In 
our walk down the banks of the I raw ad i we 
encountered a river, about fifty yards broad, 
called the Myit-tha, which runs to the south of 
the city : it unites with another, called the 
Myit-nge, which falls into the Irawadi, above 
Ava. In this manner the site of the city is 
an island. The Myit-nge, literally the Little 
River, is in the Pali named Duta-wati. Boats 
going up and down the Myit-tha pay no toll; 
but there is a ferry at the spot, which we 
visited this morning, where a small toll is paid 
of, according to circumstances, one-eighth or 
one-sixteenth of a tical. We saw goods, pas¬ 
sengers, and carts transported in considerable 
