170 JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
silver for the royal revenue, half a tical for a mat 
for the King, one tical to supply bees’ wax for his 
Majesty, one tical for the Myowun, one for his 
scribes, one for his messengers, two and a half for 
his personal expenses, half a tical for the messenger 
who collected the tax, three and a half for the chief 
of the township in which the pond is situated, and 
one and a half for his scribe : this makes a total of 
seventeen and a half ticals. His Majesty’s share 
of this, it will appear, is six ticals and a half. The 
expenses of collection, in this case, are therefore 
nearly one hundred and seventy per cent. 
Sea-fish was commonly cured in the form of 
Ngapi, or “ bruised fish,” the offensive condiment 
which I have already mentioned, and which is an 
article of universal use throughout the kingdom. 
The impost upon this commodity was levied upon 
a principle the rudest of all, but perhaps not the 
most oppressive. It was charged on each boat¬ 
load when she took her departure for a market 
from the place of manufactory, and this without 
any reference to the size of the boat, or the quality 
and amount of the cargo. Its rate was as follows : 
—Ten ticals of silver for the revenue, two ticals 
for the Myowun, two for his scribes, two for his 
messengers, two for his personal expenses, three 
for the chief of the township, and one and a half 
for his scribe; making a total of twenty-two ticals 
for each boat-load. In this instance, the charges 
