178 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
tioned, and the heavy expense of the process by 
which it is manufactured, aggravated by the un¬ 
suitableness of the climate, the current price to 
the consumer is scarcely one-half of that paid in 
those parts of the British possessions in Bengal, 
where it is the cheapest. 
The eggs of the green turtle, and the well- 
known esculent swallows’ nests, were objects of 
revenue under the Burmese Government. The 
first were collected on Diamond and Negrais Is¬ 
lands, and the last in the islands fronting the 
coasts of the provinces of Mergui and Tavoy. 
The practice was to rent both, from year to year, 
to a farmer. The produce to the treasury was 
comparatively very trifling, owing to unskilful- 
ness, want of capital, and malversation. 
The celebrated Petroleum wells afford, as I as¬ 
certained at Ava, a revenue to the King or his 
officers. The wells are private property, and be¬ 
long hereditarily to about thirty-two individuals. 
A duty of five parts in one hundred is levied upon 
the petroleum as it comes from the wells, and the 
amount realized upon it is said to be twenty-five 
thousand ticals per annum. No less than twenty 
thousand of this goes to contractors, collectors, 
or public officers; and the share of the state, or 
five thousand, was assigned during our visit as a 
pension of one of the Queens. 
The Burmese have mines of gold, silver, sap¬ 
phire, and amber, considered to be royal property. 
