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JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
vicinity to a fertile territory, with an extensive 
inland navigation, and its connexion with the 
Irawadi, which opens to it a communication with 
territories much more extensive than that of its 
immediate neighbourhood.* 
In regard to climate, I can speak, from personal 
observation, only of that of Martaban. The 
south-west monsoon and the rains set in here to¬ 
gether, about the beginning of May. In that 
month both are comparatively mild. They are 
severest in the months of June, July, and August, 
when there are frequent hard squalls and very 
heavy rain, especially during the spring tides. In 
September the winds and rain moderate. In Oc¬ 
tober they are still milder, and in the beginning 
of November they cease, and the cold weather sets 
in, which continues until the end of February. 
In January, I found the thermometer fall in the 
morning before sun-rise, at Amherst, to sixty- 
four degrees, and at night blankets were found 
comfortable. The warmest month is April; but 
even then the thermometer, in the hottest hour of 
the day, rarely rises to ninety degrees. In a 
climate so moist, and a country so covered with 
luxuriant vegetation, hot winds are unknown. In 
* Fitcli, who visited Martaban two hundred and forty years 
ago, describes it as a place of much trade. Captain Hamilton, 
whose statement refers to the year 1709, states that the Bur- 
mans, in their wars with Pegu, had sunk vessels in the river, 
and thus injured its navigation. 
