172 JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
tax of the Karyens would be twenty-seven thou¬ 
sand ticals, no more than fifteen thousand were 
paid into the treasury ; twelve thousand, or eighty 
per cent., therefore, went to the public officers, or 
was the direct charge for collection, without making 
any allowance for the public establishments, being 
already paid from other resources. This is a fair 
sample of the character of the Burmese adminis¬ 
tration. In respect to this tax, it is to be observed 
that it was in some places paid by the races called 
the Zabaing and Kyen,* as well as by the Kary¬ 
ens. it is alleged of it, too, that it is not assessed 
by families, but by the number of pairs or yokes 
of buffaloes employed in labour; and this is also 
the case in regard to the contribution of the Bur¬ 
mese and Talains especially employed in husbandry. 
This measure, however, after all, was little better 
than nominal, although probably an estimate of 
the number of working cattle may have been occa¬ 
sionally referred to, as a kind of gage for ascer¬ 
taining the taxable means of the inhabitants. The 
fact may be quoted as another example of that 
loose and indefinite character which pervades all 
Burman institutions. 
The house-tax paid by the Burmans and Talains 
* In some of the public accounts of the Burmese government 
found in the Rung-d’hau, or public hall, at Rangoon, I found 
the tax on the Karyens accounted for at the rate of ten ticals on 
each family, and on the Zabaings at nine. This, of course, did 
not include the charges of collection. 
