TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
347 
it is rather more than eleven inches in thick¬ 
ness. Considering the expense lavished by the 
Barmans on royal and religious edifices, the 
abundance of fine white marble which the coun¬ 
try affords, and that white is a favourite colour, 
it seems extraordinary that this material should 
not be in more general use. No edifice, as far 
as I had hitherto observed, was constructed of 
it, either in whole or part; no floors or terraces 
were formed of it; and with the exception of 
the statues of Gautama, a few small coarse pil¬ 
lars, and now and then a slab with an inscrip¬ 
tion, it was nowhere to be seen in a Burman 
building. The temple, as I have said, is close 
to the banks of a small picturesque lake about 
two miles long, and half as broad. A little to 
the north-west of this, is a much more consi¬ 
derable sheet of water, which is reckoned to 
be twelve miles in length, by two in breadth. 
This last is called He-my ak-gy i, or the “lake 
abounding with grass.” Both of them afford 
fisheries of some value. 
In going out this morning we met a number 
of carts, each drawn by four bullocks, and car¬ 
rying a load of salt of 300 viss (1095 lbs.) each: 
they had come from the distance of Ti-tug, 
which lies about twenty miles to the north of 
Sagaing, and in the neighbourhood of which is 
