TO THE COURT OF AVA. 21 ?' 
safflower is imported from Bengal; and turmeric 
and the jack-tree are as much cultivated for cu¬ 
linary purposes, as for the dyes which they yield. 
In the upper provinces, a species of Crotalaria is 
cultivated for cordage, and in the southern pro¬ 
vinces the rattan is the principal substitute. 
The rudeness and barbarism of the Burmese 
appear no where more striking than in their 
gardening and horticulture. Green vegetables 
and fruits form a considerable portion of their 
diet, but a great part of them are culled from the 
forests and marshes, and are not the result of cul¬ 
tivation. The young shoots of the bamboo, wild 
asparagus, the succulent stems of a variety of 
aquatic plants and uncultivated arums, which, in 
other Asiatic countries, would hardly be deemed 
esculent at all, are among the most frequent ve¬ 
getables to be met with in a Burman market. 
The flowers, which are so much used by the Bur¬ 
mese in their offerings at the temples, are very 
frequently the produce of the forest; and when 
exotics, of a culture as rude and negligent as pos¬ 
sible. A similar observation applies to fruits, al¬ 
though, perhaps, not to the same extent. In the 
upper provinces, the yam, or Dioscorea , and the 
sweet potatoe, or JBatata , are cultivated, but not 
extensively or generally. When the British army 
occupied the lower part of the country, I recol¬ 
lect, that the first of these roots was imported 
into Rangoon all the way from Malacca. The 
