26 4 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
articles as cotton, sugar-cane, and indigo. To 
these may be added, for the mountainous and 
more elevated parts of the country, black pepper, 
coffee, the mulberry, and even tea. 
The population of the provinces consists of the 
following different races: Talains, or Peguans, 
Burmans, Karyens, Taongsus, Chaloms, and Pa- 
sas. The two first are the most civilized, and the 
Karyens follow them. The rest are but poor, 
wandering, half-savage people. The Peguans 
form the bulk of the inhabitants. Shortly after 
these provinces came into our possession, an at¬ 
tempt was made to form a rough estimate of their 
population, and the following were the results — 
Part of Martaban . . . 24,000 
Ye . . . . . 3,000 
Tavoy ..... 15,000 
Mergui .... 8,000 
50,000 
This afforded the miserable result of one and a 
half inhabitant to the square mile. This state of 
depopulation was produced by the incursions of 
the Siamese into the provinces of Tavoy and 
Mergui, and by two great emigrations of the 
Talain inhabitants of Martaban into Siam, which 
took place not many years before our conquest of 
it. After the restoration of the other parts of 
Pegu to the Burmese, on the conclusion of peace, 
many of the Talain inhabitants sought refuge 
