TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
297 
which be marvellous great and fair, and are 
brought up to wars and in service of the king; 
and among the rest, he has four white elephants, 
which are very strange and rare, for there is none 
other king hath them but he: if any other king 
hath one, he will send to him for it.” Here, in 
reality, we have, although upon a large and mag¬ 
nificent scale, a pretty faithful description of the 
modern city of Ava, with its palaces, pagodas, 
and elephants. 
The account given of the foreign trade of Pegu 
is equally faithful with the rest of Fitch’s narra¬ 
tive, and is such as to convey a very respectable 
opinion of its extent in those early times. “ In 
India,” says our intelligent author, “ there are 
few commodities which serve for Pegu, except 
opium of Cambaia, painted cloth of St. Thome, 
or of Masulipatan, and white cloth of Bengal a, 
which is spent there in great quantity. They 
bring thither also much cotton yarn, red coloured 
with a root which they call saia, which will never 
lose its colour: it is very well sold, and very much 
of it cometli yearly to Pegu. By your money 
you lose much. The ships which come from 
Bengala, St. Thome, and Masulipatan, come to 
the bar of Negrais and Cosmin. To Martavan, 
a port of the sea in the kingdom of Pegu, come 
many ships from Malacca, laden with sandal, 
porcelains, and other wares of China, and with 
