238 JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
burning, to the exclusion of oil, wax, or tallow. 
Petroleum is obtained only at one spot, and here 
pays a money duty to the Government of five in 
one hundred. The yearly tax collected, accord¬ 
ing to the statement of the farmer, amounts to 
25,000 ticals ; but he reckoned himself to lose by 
smuggling 8,000 ticals, making the amount of the 
duty which should be paid, 33,000 ticals. The 
value of the whole petroleum, according to this 
statement, would be 060,000 ticals. The price of 
the oil on the spot is estimated at three ticals per 
hundred viss, so that the annual produce will be 
about 22,000,000 of viss. A considerable quantity 
of this is used in house and boat-building, which 
we shall estimate at a fourth part, which reduces 
the quantity used for burning to 16,500,000. At 
the capital, the average consumption of a family is 
estimated, according to the circumstances of the 
parties, to be from twenty to forty viss per annum 
This is at the distance of about two hundred miles 
from the wells, and against the stream of the river. 
The average would give an annual consumption 
of thirty viss, but it will be safer to assume it at 
the lower estimate of twenty-five. This will make 
the whole number of families using it 660,000, 
and reckoning each family (not house) at five per¬ 
sons, we shall have a population of 3,300,000. 
I should observe, that petroleum is universally 
used, wherever the navigation of the Irawadi and 
Kyen-dwen, with their tributary streams, will 
