TO THE COURT OF AYA. 
179 
Of the produce of the gold mines I know no¬ 
thing ; but some Chinese at Ava, who had visited 
the silver mines, informed me, that these were 
rented to Chinese contractors, who employed 
about one thousand of their own countrymen as 
miners; paying a fixed duty or rent to the King 
of Ava by two half-yearly instalments of forty- 
eight viss, or four thousand eight hundred ticals, 
about six hundred pounds sterling. The King 
lays claim to every ruby or sapphire which ex¬ 
ceeds the value of one hundred ticals ; and there 
is, from all accounts, a large collection of both 
in the royal treasury ; but as they are never sold, 
and not often disposed of in any way, they can 
hardly be said to form an effectual portion of the 
revenue. 
The teak forests may be enumerated among 
the sources of Barman revenue. The greater 
number of these being distant from a market, 
their produce is of no exchangeable value; and 
the peasantry of the neighbourhood are usually 
allowed to fell timber in them, to any extent, 
upon payment of a trifling douceur to the chief of 
the township or village to which they are attached. 
This was not the case with the timber of the forests 
of Sarawadi, which chiefly furnished the exports 
from Rangoon for foreign countries. This dis¬ 
trict has been commonly the assignment of a 
member of the royal family. The woodcutters 
paid to the lord, whoever he might be, twenty in 
N 2 
