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JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
common potato is wholly unknown to the Bur¬ 
mese. In the same manner, they are strangers to 
all our ordinary garden vegetables, such as peas, 
carrots, cabbages, turnips, mustard, cresses, ra¬ 
dishes, &c. Even melons, cucumbers, and the 
egg-plant, so generally cultivated in other parts 
of India, are rare or little attended to in Ava. 
Onions are produced in some of the mountainous 
parts of the upper provinces, and imported from 
Lao. They are an article of trade to the lower 
provinces, where they are unknown as objects of 
culture. The capsicum is, after salt, the most 
general condiment used by the Burmese; and this 
hardy, productive, and cheap article, is universally 
cultivated in every part of the country. The 
most skilfully, and one of the most universally 
cultivated objects of Javanese gardening, is the 
betel pepper. In the damp climate of Pegu, it 
is grown with comparatively little care ; but in 
the upper provinces it requires shade, irrigation, 
and attention. 
In the cultivation of fruits, the Burmese are, 
I think, unquestionably below all their neigh¬ 
bours, and especially the Siamese. The varieties 
known to them are small, and no skill or pains 
are bestowed on their culture. The most com¬ 
mon fruits are the mango, the orange, the pine, 
the custard apple, the jack, the papaya-fig, and 
the plantain. The mango, (in Burman, Tharet,) 
