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BIRMAH. 7T>
their morals are good ; but, like the Kiayns, if,
indeed, they are not the same people, they have
no laws, are wholly illiterate, and, though they be-
lieve in a future state, have no notion of its being a
state of retribution.* Whether these Tibetian tribes
are aboriginal inhabitants, older than the Birmans,
or remains of Chinese colonists, their affinity to the
Tartar tribes is obvious and decided. Many of their
customs attach equally, however, to the Birmans, as
will be seen from the following valuable account of
the manners and customs of the Birmans, by the Rev.
G. H. Hough, some time resident in that empire, for
which we are indebted to a recent number of " The
Friend of India," published at Serampore in Bengal.
" There is perhaps no country in the world, in which
the sway of despotism has been less controlled by any
correct feeling or sentiment, or which exhibits a
stronger specimen of its injurious effects upon the
physical and moral powers of mankind, than the Birman
dominions. . . . The obstacles to mental and moral improvement
there, however, are neither so numerous
nor so formidable as those which have presented them-
selves in India.
" Caste, which has separated the Indian community
into so many diversified sects, and the motto of which
is,
'
taste not, handle not,' has no existence in the
Birman empire. There, society is founded on a basis
that would admit the existence of the most liberal
* Asiat. Res., vol. vi. p. 300. In Marsden's Marco Polo, (note
826, ) the learned editor cites P. Gaubil and De Guignes as authorities
for the opinion, that Karaian is the north-western part of
the province of Yun-nan, which is bounded in great measure by
the Kiu-sha-kiang. Its capital is said to have been Yachi ( Ye-chu
or Yao-cheu), afterwards changed to Tali-fu, on the western bank
of the lake Siul. Karazan or Kalashan is either the same province
or another district of Yun-nan, further westward.