TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
29 5 
verned by a Burman dynasty, and, although sepa¬ 
rated from Ava, ruled by a prince of the same 
family. This state of things was probably the re¬ 
sult of the Burman conquest of Pegu, which was 
effected during the visit of Mendez Pinto, in 
1546, and of which that writer has rendered so ex¬ 
aggerated and obviously unfaithful an account. 
We gather from Fitch’s statements, that the 
kingdom of Pegu was in his time in a far more 
prosperous state than during the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, and even to the present 
times. Besides the capital, he describes as large 
and flourishing places, Cosmin, or Bassein, Me- 
don, Dalla, Syrian, a place called by him Macao, 
and Martaban. The description given of the 
capital is, on account of the writer’s ascertained 
fidelity, worth transcribing. “ Pegu,” says he, 
“ is a city strong and very fair, with walls of 
stone and great ditches round about it. There 
are two towns, the old and the new. In the old 
town are all the merchant strangers, and very 
many merchants of the country. All the goods 
are sold in the old town, which is very great, and 
hath many suburbs round about it; and all the 
houses are made of canes, which they call bam- 
bos, and be covered with straw. In your house 
you have a warehouse or godon, which is made of 
brick, to put your goods in ; for oftentimes they 
take fire, and burn in an hour four or five hun- 
