162 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
exist under the highly arbitrary political institu¬ 
tions of the Burmese. The petty proprietors owe 
their existence to their political insignificance, 
and utility in paying contributions. The Govern¬ 
ment, claiming a right of property in the labour 
of the cultivators, overlooks the lands which they 
occupy, as the mere tool or instrument of that 
labour. 
A direct tax on the land, according either to 
its extent or fertility, is not known to the Bur¬ 
mese. The impost is levied upon the proprietors 
or cultivators by families, and according to a 
rough estimate of their supposed means. An or¬ 
ganized land-tax, as a branch of public revenue, 
even in the modified sense now described, does 
not exist. Nearly all the lands of the kingdom, 
or, more correctly, the cultivators or peasants, 
are assigned to favourites and public officers, in 
lieu of stipends and salaries, or appropriated to 
the expenses of public establishments,—such as 
the war-boats, the elephants, &c. Very few of 
the lands, according to the best information which 
I could procure, are reserved as a royal domain. 
The sovereign of Ava therefore, although pos¬ 
sessed of unbounded influence and patronage, 
is destitute of the great resource of other Asiatic 
governments—a land revenue. 
The individual who receives the land from his 
sovereign, as a temporary assignment for his sub¬ 
sistence, or salary, is denominated in the Burman 
