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174
BIRMAH.
bamboo and pipal-trees. Through this wilderness,
one of the party penetrated nine or ten miles, without
meeting with an inhabitant or seeing a single dwell-
"
ing. Southward of Pegu, about a mile beyond the
city walls, there is a plain of great extent, for the most
part overgrown with wild grass and low brushwood,
and bare of limber, except where a sacred grove
maintains its venerable shade. A few wretched vil-
lages are to be seen, containing not more than twenty
or thirty poor habitations. Small spots have been
cleared for tillage by the peasants, who seem to live in
extreme poverty, notwithstanding they possess in
their cattle the means of comfortable subsistence;
but they do not eat the flesh, and what is remarkable
enough, seldom drink the milk. Rice, gnapee, and
oil, expressed from a small grain, with salt, are almost
their only articles of food. Their cows are diminutive,
resembling the breed on the coast of Coromandel; but
the buffaloes are noble animals, much superior to
those of India. Some are of a light cream-colour.
The.y are used for draft and agriculture, and draw
heavy loads on carts and small waggons, constructed
with considerable neatness and ingenuity.
"
The only article of consequence manufactured at
Pegu, is silk and cotton cloth, which the women
weave for their own and their husbands' use. It is
wrought with considerable dexterity;
the thread is
well spun; the texture of the web is close and strong,
and it is mostly checkered like the Scotch tartan;
but they make no more than what suffices for their
own consumption."
The country in this neighbourhood abounds with
various kinds of game, particularly antelopes, jungle-
fowl, and peacocks. Tigers prowl around the villages
by night, and sometimes carry off the dogs, but do not