20 6 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
nearly under the ramparts. I shall take another 
opportunity of giving as full an account of the 
city of Ava as my materials will admit. In the 
meanwhile, I may mention that it is between five 
and six miles in circumference, and surrounded 
by a brick rampart. The north-east angle is se¬ 
parated from the larger part of the town by 
a brick wall, and constitutes a second town, 
which contains the palace and public offices. In 
the external wall we counted twenty-one gates. 
On a painted and gilded board, on a post fronting 
each gate, there is an inscription, containing the 
name of the gate, and the date of its construction. 
This is a literal translation of one of these in¬ 
scriptions :— 
“ In the year 1188 (1823), on Monday the 
first of the Wane of the Moon Ta-baong.—The 
Ta-nen-tha-ri, (Tennasserim,) gate of the Royal 
Golden City named Ha-ta-na-pu-ra. 
The gates are generally named after places, 
—such as the Hen-za-wadi, or Pegu gate ; the 
Yo-da-ya, or Siamese gate; the Mok-ta-ma, or 
Martaban gate, &c. The list contains several 
names little known to European geography, al¬ 
though apparently familiar to the Burmese. 
These are generally tributary states of the king- 
* Ratnapura, in Pali or Sanscrit, means the “ city of gems.” 
