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JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
peal lies from his authority to the chief council at 
the capital. The number of the principal officers 
in Pegu, was as I have now described ; but it 
often happened, that the Government, desirous 
of extending its patronage, doubled, or even tri¬ 
pled, the number of officers under the Myo-wun. 
Shortly before its conquest by the British, there 
were, for example, two iie-wuns, and two Ak’h- 
won-wuns. The office of ile-wun, and generally 
that of collector of customs, existed only in the 
maritime provinces. All the public business of 
the province is transacted in an open hall called a 
Rung, with the epithet d’hau, or royal. 
The government of the townships is entrusted 
to an officer named a Myo-thu-gyi. These words, 
commonly pronounced by us and by the Moham¬ 
medans Myo-su-gi, may be interpreted “ chief of 
the township for the word “ thu” means head, 
or head-man: the others have been already ex¬ 
plained. The districts and villages were adminis¬ 
tered by their own chiefs, named Thu-gyis ; in 
the latter instance, the word “ rua,” pronounced 
“ yua,” a village or hamlet, being prefixed. These 
were all respectively subordinate to each other. 
No public officer under the Burmese Govern¬ 
ment ever receives any fixed money-salary. The 
principal officers are rewarded by assignments of 
land, or, more correctly, by an assignment of the 
labour and industry of a given portion of the in¬ 
habitants ; and the inferior ones by fees, perqui- 
