British Burma and its people: being sketches of native ... - Khamkoo

CH. I. Physical Geography.
1
quake should sliake the wliole land, and then the sea
covering it shotild be dried up. In the time of
Dwottaboung, the founder of the city of Prome,
644 B.C., the history afterwards relates that these
events
occurred, and that the country around Prome
and to the south formerly beneath the sea became dry
land. The prophecy without doubt is as mythical as
Gaudama's visit to this region ; but is it not most
probable that the actual occurrence of such a convulsion
of nature was the origin of the prophecy?
In fact, across the whole breadth of the delta, from
Cape Negrais to Martaban Point, every local
tradition, every fairy tale, points to
village
a time when the
sea covered all the country of Martaban and of
Lower Pegu.
History affords us the following facts, which
there is no reason to suppose untrue.
At least 600 years after Christ, Thatone, now
twelve miles from the sea, was a seaport, and ships
traded thence to the Coromandel Coast and Ceylon.
In 1191, Narapadiseethoo, King of Pugan, in Upper
Burma, came down with a fleet of war boats to
Eangoon, and, going round hy the sea, he sailed up
the Sittang River and founded the city of Tonghoo.
He then returned down the river and sailed across
to Martaban. No mention is made of the dreaded
'bore,' which would effectually prevent such an