TO THE COURT OF AYA. 
129 
hood, the merchants, or “ rich men 5 ’as they are 
called, the cultivators and labourers, slaves, and 
outcasts. The only class of public officers which 
can be called' hereditary under the Burmese Go¬ 
vernment, are the Thaubwas, or Saubwas,* the 
tributary princes of the subjugated countries. The 
rest, of the chief officers, at least, are appointed 
and dismissed at a nod, and neither their titles, 
rank, nor offices, and very often not even their 
property, can descend to their children. Any sub¬ 
ject of the Burmese Government, short of a slave 
or outcast, may aspire to the first office in the 
state, and such offices, in reality, are often held 
by persons of very mean origin. With every 
new promotion in office, a new title is commonly 
conferred, and without office there is seldom 
any title. 
The priests (P’hun-gyi or Ra-han) bound to a 
rigid celibacy, interdicted from all employment but 
their own especial calling, and particularly from in¬ 
termeddling in politics ; but secured from the ne¬ 
cessity of labour by the voluntary contributions of 
the rest of the society ; form an important and 
comparatively numerous class. In the districts 
comprehending the capital, I was told at Ava that 
there were twenty thousand priests, of whom six 
* I have reason to believe that this word is a Burmese cor¬ 
ruption of the Siamese, and, which is the same thing, of the 
Shan or Lao title “ Chau-pya,” which is the usual designation 
given by the Siamese to the princes tributary to them. 
VOL. II. , K 
