TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
213 
ed a quantity of wheat to be sold, with the view 
of relieving the poor from a temporary scarcity. 
Although a much more valuable grain in India 
generally than rice, the Burmese would not give 
nearly the same price for it; and when compell¬ 
ed from necessity to use it, they boiled it whole 
as they would have done rice, being ignorant of 
any other mode of preparing it for food. Had the 
upper country been colonized by any of the west¬ 
ern races of men, wheat, and not rice, would in all 
probability have constituted the chief object of 
husbandry.—The pulses most commonly cultivat¬ 
ed are the Phaseolus-max , the Dolichos Bengal - 
ensis, the Clear arietinum , and the Arachis hypo - 
gcea or ground nut. All of these are used for 
human food, and not given to cattle. The first 
two are the least productive, but the most es¬ 
teemed. The third, commonly known to Euro¬ 
peans in the Bengal provinces by the name of 
gram, is doubly more productive than these, but 
it is a coarse pulse. It is known in the Burmese 
language by the name of Kula-pia, or “ the wes¬ 
tern foreigners’ bean.” It is no doubt, therefore, 
an exotic, and in all likelihood was, like wheat, 
introduced from Bengal, in times too not very re¬ 
mote. The Arachis is cultivated, but in small 
quantities, and never on account of its oil, as in 
some other countries of the East. Pulses are 
chiefly cultivated in the upper provinces, and 
the Cicer arietinum , or gram, is exclusively con- 
