166 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
records, and the want of any settled financial or¬ 
ganization, leave, however, the amount of tribute 
paid, in a good measure, voluntary. A tithe, it 
ought indeed to be observed, is, by the usage of 
the Burrnan Government, the immemorial right, 
in all cases, of the King. Such is the theory, but 
in practice the exceptions are of more frequent 
application than the rule. 
Besides the contributions paid to the lord of 
the land, the cultivators are from time to time, 
and according to public exigency, supposed or 
real, called upon for extraordinary contributions 
to the Crown. The amount of these is fixed, for 
each particular occasion, by an order of the Lut- 
d’hau, or principal council of state. Such contri¬ 
butions, some of which are local and some general, 
are levied through the lords and local officers, who 
never fail to make them a pretext for levying 
additional exactions on their own account often 
greater than those taken for the Government. 
The Burmese cultivators, as in other Asiatic 
countries, are associated in villages—an arrange¬ 
ment, however, dictated only by the necessity of 
congregating for convenience and security, for 
there is no community of property among them, 
each individual being the exclusive proprietor of 
his own fields, and tilling them at his own risk 
and cost. The inhabitants of towns, or such part 
of them as are engaged in trade or manufactures, 
are taxed by families, in the exact same manner 
