APPENDIX. 
23 
The treasure which is not already in the public coffers is 
certainly not likely soon to be collected from a country 
essentially poor. The results of my inquiries, of which I 
shall have the honour soon to lay an abstract before the 
Government, go to prove that the Burman territory is but 
very partially cultivated, and thinly peopled by a race of 
inhabitants who have made little progress in useful indus¬ 
try. The financial system of the Government is rude, bar¬ 
barous, and inefficient, beyond what can be easily believed. 
No regular land revenue, as in other Asiatic countries, is 
collected, on account of the sovereign, the great majority 
of the lands being given away in Jageer to the members of 
the royal family, to public officers, and to favourites, in the 
form of pensions or salaries, and a mere trifle being reserved 
for the King. Of the amount of the available public re¬ 
venue, a just opinion may be formed from this well-known 
fact, that the most considerable item of it is the revenue of 
the port of Rangoon, of which the King’s share certainly 
has not exceeded three lacs of ticals a-year. 
No disbursements in the shape of money are almost ever 
made from the treasury, as no money-salary is paid to any 
officers, from the highest to the lowest,—all those who have 
no lands, living as they can upon the produce of fees, per¬ 
quisites, and extortions. Even the Government itself does 
not touch upon its hoard, except on very extraordinary oc¬ 
casions, and may be said to support itself as if it were from 
hand to mouth. If an embassy is to be sent to a foreign 
country, a contribution is levied for the purpose ; if an 
army is sent upon an expedition, the necessary expenses 
are raised on the spur of the moment; if a temple is to be 
built, the same thing is done; and so on, in all other cases. 
When the remaining instalments are to be paid to us, this 
is the mode in which the money will inevitably be raised, 
even supposing considerable funds to exist in the King’s 
