A Burmese wonderland; a tale of travel in Lower and ... - Khamkoo

A BURMESE WONDERLAND. 161
Bodaw Paya transferred the capital to Amarapura.
We have abready seen Father Sangermano's account of
the " fatigues, exactions and oppressions " entailed.
However it
must be noted that Major Symes describing
Amarapura says that it became in a short time " one
of the most flourishing and well built cities of the
east."
Yandabo, where the treaty was signed in 1826
after the First Burmese War, is some miles below Ava.
We had diflSculty in locating it, and the Thugyi Maung
Po Maung appeared to be the only man who knew where
the treaty was made. We found that the peepul tree,
beneath which the signatures took place, had been
burnt down many years ago. No trace remains of it,
but its site was pointed out at 6 paces from the steps
in the outer wall of the Paw-daw-mu Pagoda, and on
the north-west face of it. A few yards away, near
the north-east wall of the Pagoda, the Thugyi showed
us a place where there had once been an inscribed
stone, presumably a record of the treaty. The stone
has now disappeared, but the Thugyi himself remembered
seeing it as a boy. It stood beside what was
formerly a road, but the site is now enclosed within
the fence of a monastery. The Pagoda wall has since
been moved out a few paces,
and it is probable that the
stone, now sunk into the ground, Ues either just
outside
the wall, or under the pavement of the court within.
An excavation made as the result of my visit was
unsuccessful.
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