I

ward, parallel to it, I passed through a breach in the eastern curtain, and think I saw the north angle bastion, about 700 yards from me. It is probable, therefore, that the fort was not larger than the present one at Amarapooral; or they may have fixed dimensions for their imperial forts. The wall is composed of small bricks and mud, about fourteen cubits thick; and has the remains of a dry fosse without. sketched the figure of one of the most perfect and the largest I saw. My view is of the west front, which measures at the base about 183 feet, and, as nearly as I can judge by my eye, is about 200 feet in height. Its interior is similar to one I have described, but in better preservation. It is built of bricks of two dimensions, the largest, which are used in the body of the building, are seventeen inches long, eight and a half broad, and three and a half thick.. The least are fourteen and a half long, seven and five-eighths broad, and one and a half thick. They are well burnt, and joined together with great skill and nicety. Their surface and edges being ground, perfectly correspond, and lie so close as that not the least cement can be seen between them; if any was used it must be a very fine gluten. As far as relates to the exterior surface of the body of the building, the masonry is the best I have ever seen, but I doubt much whether this holds good through out; perhaps it is only observed in the cannon revetements. The whole building has been plastered over in the usual manner, and it is where this plaster has scaled off that the workmanship is to be observed.

A little further to the eastward, without the walls of the fort, is another about the size of the one I sketched, but somewhat different in form. It has been repaired and beautified by the present Prince of Pagaan, and is deserving of more attention than my time or circumstances would permit me to bestow on it. It is also quadrangular, but its porticos project further, and the spire is loftier, and it has two vaulted galleries surrounding it, in the walls of which are numerous niches filled with various images of their deities. In the four principal centre niches are four erect colossal gilt images of Godomah, about twenty-five feet in height, standing on the lotos flower. It is remarkable that these have all crisped hair! The Poonghees deny that they have any affinity with Caffres, but say that

when Godomah assumed the religious habit he cut off his hair with his sword, leaving it rugged or furrowed, and the features of a genuine Burmhan have a good deal of the Caffre cast. These principal niches form a kind of sanctum sanctorum, and are railed off so as to prevent the too near approach of the multitude. Over each figure is suspended a chattre of dominion. In the vestibule of the western front is a large stone with the prints of the feet of Godomah. These are only representations of those sacred impressions which he has left in various parts of the earth, particularly in the Burmhan dominions. The following are the rough dimensions which I took of the building, to form a ground-plan from :-The outer wall of the portico fourteen feet thick, breadth of the passage ten feet. Portico or vestibule, length forty feet, breadth twenty-one, height thirty-five, passage of ditto to first cloister or gallery fourteen feet length, breadth ten feet. First gallery greatest length 143 feet, breadth eighty-six, passage thence to the inner gallery fourteen feet, breadth ten feet; inner gallery greatest length 101 feet ten inches, breadth eight feet six inches. Nich for the idol, breadth twenty feet, depth seventeen feet, height thirty-five or forty feet. The partition wall between the two galleries, and the outer wall also, had several small arches for the passage of air and light at different heights. To get to the second story it was necessary to creep along a cornice, about fourteen feet above the pavement, and only sixteen inches broad; a risk which neither our devotion or curiosity could tempt us to encounter. I have only to add that the avenues to the inner cloister had great folding grated gates; but the only precautions used are seemingly intended to keep out cattle. We are permitted to traverse and examine every thing without molestation; a few persons, who, I suppose, were slaves to the pagoda, attending us out of curiosity. However, to reconcile them to our measuring, &c. I told them we had nothing of the kind in our country, and if I was not particular in writing down the length, breadth, &c. the people there would not believe that there was such a building in the world. In the two galleries of the lower story I think there are at least 2,000 images in the niches, of stone and wood gilt, the carving tolerable; and in little compartments on the outside of the surbase, were figures in relief, of green

varnished

varnished pottery, and also on the frieze of the cornice.

The prince of Pagaam has a house here; or, as it is called in the language of the country, a palace, surrounded by a mat enclosure; but we were not permitted to examine it. Near the river are a number of betel gardens, covered over as in Hindostan, and apparently diligently kept. They are watered by paeotes, as used on the Coromandel coast; but the lever is wrought by the men at the bucket, after the Chinese fashion. There are but few inhabitants here, and those apparently in indigent circumstances; the trade of this place having been transferred with its population to Gucaym, adjoining it to the northward, where the principal manufacture of lacquered ware is carried on. Near it also is a famous pagoda, built by one of the ancient kings of Pegaam, and lately repaired and gilt by private donations of the devout.

CHANBEW-MEW.

October 24. At seven A.M. we passed Chanbew-mew, or the city of the White Elephant. The river having thrown up a large sand flat before it, its trade is carried on in temporary huts, erected on the beach in the dry season; as remarked going up, several merchantboats lying there. On the eastern shore also is a considerable town, a little to the southward of which are rugged downs, which extend all the way as far as the Chokey and town of Mumboo. There is a considerable flat on the western side the river Croad, and numbers of uncultivated islands mid channel. At one P.M. we passed the upper town of Hananghong; at three P.M. my Bengal washerman departed this life. His complaint was an inflammation of the spleen and worms, of long standing before he left Bengal ; besides, he was so irregular and obstinate, that all Mr. Key's endeavours were in vain, although every attention our circumstances would permit was afforded him. At four P.M. made fast at Wamachote on the eastern bank, and buried him. Wamachote is famous in legendary lore, as being the place where a hog waded the river, of such a monstrous size that he passed without wetting his belly. There are a few miserable huts; the country in land arid, sterile, rugged downs. At nine P.M. we were alarmed by some war-boats passing up, who approached us in a mischievous manner, and would

October 27. We proceeded at five A.M. with a number of small boats of the mew whoon's suite in company; the land, on both sides, alternately hills and small flats near the river; inland, I am told, there are considerable flats and valleys under culture, and well inhabited. At nine A.M. we passed the town and chokey of Palo, on the east bank, belonging to the Prince of Prone, and where his jaghire or territory begins. A little further down on the west bank we passed the town and chokey of Patoi, belonging to one of the queens. The new whoon's phæun came in sight, surrounded by a great fleet of merchant-boats under his convoy; a privilege he assumes whenever he goes up or down the river, and from which he and his, derive a considerable profit at the expense of the chokeys. About ten A.M. he passed us in all the pomp of savage state; exalted in his own ideas, probably, in proportion as he saw us degraded. He, in a commodious phæun, rowed by 100 men, and humble me in a blatchong-boat paddled by six or seven; his lady deigned to look at us, but he did not appear. At eleven A.M. we passed the town of Comma; the great route to Bengal by Arrakan goes through it; the distance, I am told, to Arrakan is seventy miles. At noon, saw hills on both sides down to the water's edge, clothed with wood in full verdure, so as to appear cheerful and picturesque. The river from a half to three-quarters of a mile broad, the current gentle, and water smooth. The banks are, in general, tolerably stocked with game, deer, hare, partridge, quail, snipe, and jungle fowl; so that with proper accommodations, and on good terms with government, a voyage on this river at this season would be pleasant, indeed superior to one on the Ganges, or any other river I know. At four P.M. we passed the city of Prone, or Paai-Mew, once the capital of the Burmhan dominions, and still a place of considerable trade and population. Timber is to be had here, cheap and in plenty; and iron, the produce of mines in its vicinity. Ships of 500 tons have been built here, and there is

now

now one on the stocks of about 300 tons burthen. Here is also a considerable manufacture of paper, and various articles made of it, as chattres and black books. The adjacent country is also very fertile in grain, and the air said to be more salubrious than any other part of the Burmhan dominions.

THE VOYAGE CONTINUED.

October 28. Proceeded at five A.M. About five miles below Prone, and a little above Patoun is an island covered with trees towards the western shore: a considerable flat also lies on the west side, backed by high mountains. East bank flat near the river about one mile, and backed by rugged hills, which extend four or five miles below Prone, and then recede to the eastward, with banks well inhabited and cultivated. At nine we passed the town of Patoun, a place of considerable note, and the residence of the mewdaghee, whose jurisdiction, I am informed, extends along the western bank as far down as Meaoun. Mr. Reeves went on shore at Patoun to see the mewdaghee's son, who had given him an invitation when at Amarapoorah. He received him very kindly, and his father invited him to come and reside there to build ships, promising him every support. Shinban planks are bought there at two and a half ticals, five per cent. silver, per pair. The mew-daghee was very busy collecting men and arms for the Siam expedition. I counted twenty-one new boats lying along the bank near Patoun. High mountains six or seven miles inland; the river about one mile and a half broad, but encumbered with several large reedy islands. We now passed down to the eastward of the large islands, that lay opposite the town of Pohunghee, which is situated in the beautiful valley on the western shore; and noticed as a favourable place for ship-building, in my passage up the river. At one P.M. we passed Yongjerry, a long straggling town on the east bank, several boats were lying at it; there also passed several war-boats bound up. At half-past three P.M. passed Trough-Mou, where ends the Prince of Prone's jurisdiction, and commences that of the mew whoon's of Hunzawuddy; which latter continues to the sea shore on the east side. He has also jurisdiction over the country on the west bank and Meaoun to Basseen river, where commences the Prince of Basseen's country. To the southward of Prone the trees are of a much

larger size than above, and every thing indicates a greater fertility of soil. Formerly the whole of the country southward of Prone was inhabited by Peguers or, as called by the Burmbans, Tulliens; but their conquerors are fast encroaching on them, so that now most of the inhabitants in the villages along shore, are Burmbans; the poor Peguers retiring out of the country, or into the jungles. The country, although apparently flat viewed from the river, yet is considerably elevated inland; and the soil is gravel and loam in the rising grounds; the country gets more level, however, as we advance to the southward. At half-past five P.M. we made fast under a steep bank at the upper end of the town of Meaoun; a straggling place about a mile and a half long, the houses wretched, and surrounded, like all the Burmhan towns, with filth and weeds. The soil very rich; inland are extensive paddy fields, the grain just in ear. About seven P.M. some unlucky wag thought proper to sport his wit on the strangers by pelting us with stones and clods. I received a smart blow on my shoulder whilst sitting on the top of my boat, and sent some people in chase of our assailants, but without success; unwilling to risk a second assault we dropped down below the town to a place where the beach was shelving, and our situation less exposed.

October 30. We proceeded at four A.M. the river broad, but encumbered with reedy islands, or extensive reedy banks, projecting alternately from either shore; on the main banks, trees. The land appears nearly deserted, and all the villages on the east bank_reduced since I last passed; but, as they are in general only a parcel of sheds, run up with bamboos, mats and straw, a town is soon formed or abandoned, and the inhabitants are constantly shifting about to avoid the impositions of their masters. One cause of this roving habit is the exemption from groundrent, for one or two years, in which a new settler is indulged. At forty minutes past six P.M. we passed the lower mouth of Sailoon Creek; west bank at eight P.M. Came to the east chokey and town of Tanghain, and entered the Rangoon branch; we continued dropping down with the current till one at midnight, being a fine moon-light, calm night, when we anchored, in the stream to rest the people, having made about ten miles since we entered the river.

The

per

The current is very gentle; throughout this day, about two miles per hour in the great river, and one mile and a half hour in the small one. Mosquitos are very troublesome, especially since we entered the Yonghong branch; they are the largest, and most ravenous of any I have ever met with. November 1. At seven A.M. we arrived at the pier at Rangoon, and found an English snow, the Peggy, Captain Carey of Bengal. The shabunder Jhansey came on board with Mr. Dyer. After breakfast I landed, and went up to my house; in the course of the day most of my baggage was landed. And thus ends my expedition to Amarapcorah, on which I have been absent from Rangoon eleven months wanting four days.

VIEWS

OF

SOCIETY AND MANNERS

IN

AMERICA;

IN A

Series of Letters from that Country to a
Friend in England.

During the Years 1818, 1819, and 1820.
BY FRANCES WRIGHT.
Demy 8vo. price 14s.

[This is the best, and perhaps the fairest account that has appeared of the United States. The authoress thinks for herself, and in her views of society, abstracts in the spirit of philosophy. She does not contrast the artificial life of great cities with that passed in a wilderness-the misery of selfish contention with the rude enjoyments of nature—but friendly to the simplicity of country life, and to liberty in social life, she draws, under the influence of her wellfounded partialities, an exhilarating picture of that country, which, to Europe, must be regarded as the land of promise and hope.]

APPROACH TO NEW YORK. IT was not without emotion that, on the evening of the 30th day from that on which we had cleared out of the Mersey, we heard the cry of “ Land,” and straining our eyes in the direction of the setting sun, saw the heights of Never-sink slowly rise from the waters opposing a black screen to the crimson glories of the evening sky.

You will but too well remember the striking position of New York to require that I should describe it. The magnificent bay, whose broad and silver MONTHLY MAG. No. 363.

waters, sprinkled with islands, are so finely closed by the heights of the Narrows, which, jutting forward with a fine sweeping bend, gave a circular form

to the immense basin which receives the waters of the Hudson-this magnificent bay is grand and beautiful as when you admired it some twentyyears since; only that it is perhaps more thickly studded with silver-winged vessels, from the light sharp-keeled boat through all the varieties of shape and size, to the proud three-masted ship, setting and lowering its sails to or from the thousand ports of distant Europe, or yet more distant Asia.

Every thing in the neighbourhood of this city exhibits the appearance of life and cheerfulness. The purity of the air, the brilliancy of the unspotted heavens, the crowd of moving vessels, shooting in various directions, up and down, and across the bay and the farstretching Hudson, and the forest of masts crowded round the quays and wharfs at the entrance of the East River. There is something in all this,— in the very air you breathe, and the fa'r and moving scene that you rest your eye upon, which exhilarates the spirits, and makes you in good-humour with life and your fellow-creatures.

Approaching the city at sunset, I shall not soon forget the impression which its gay appearance made upon me. Passing slowly round its southern point, (formed by the confluence of the Hudson with what is called the East River, though it seems more properly an arm of the sea,) we admired at our leisure the striking panorama which encircled us. Immediately in our front the battery, with its little fort and its publie walks, diversified with trees impending over the water, numberless welldressed figures gliding through the foliage, or standing to admire our nearing vessel. In the back ground, the neatly-painted houses receding into distance; the spiry tops of poplars peering above the roofs, and marking the line of the streets. The city, gradually enlarging from the battery as from the apex of a triangle, the eye followed on one side the broad channel of the Hudson, and the picturesque coast of Jersey, at first sprinkled with villages and little villas, whose white walls just glanced in the distance through thick beds of trees, and afterwards rising into abrupt precipices, now crowned with wood, and now jutting forward in bare walls of rock. To the right, the more winding waters of the East River, 4 G

bounded

bounded on one side by the wooded heights of Brooklyn and the varied shores of Long Island, and on the other by quays and warehouses, scarce discernible through the forest of masts that were crowded as far as the eye could reach. Behind us stretched the broad expanse of the bay, whose islets crowned with turreted forts, their colours streaming from their flag-staffs, seemed to slumber on the still and glowing waters, in dark or sunny spots, as they variously caught or shunned the gaze of the sinking sun. It was a glorious scene; and we almost caught the enthusiasm of our companions, who, as they hailed their native city, pronounced it the fairest in the world.

NEW YORK AND VICINITY.

Notwithstanding the pleasant, opulent, and airy appearance of the city, a European might be led to remark, that, if nature has done every thing for it, art, in the way of ornament, has as yet done little. Except the City Hall there is not a public building worth noticing, but it presents what is far better-streets of private dwellings, often elegant, and always comfortable. Turn where you will successful industry seems to have fixed her abode. No dark alleys, whose confined and noisome atmosphere marks the presence of a dense and suffering population; no hovels, in whose ruined garrets, or dank and gloomy cellars, crowd the wretched victims of vice and disease, whom penury drives to despair, ere she opens to them the grave.

I shall not fatigue you with particular accounts of the excursions we have made into the surrounding country. We surveyed with pleasure the thriving farms of Long Island, and those of the neighbouring state of Jersey. The country is every where pleasingly diversified; gentle hills, sinking into extensive valleys, watered by clear rivers, their banks sprinkled with neat white dwellings, usually low and broad roofed, shaded by projecting piazzas, and very generally by enormous weeping willows. These exotics seem to take wonderfully to the soil and climate, and are much cultivated, in the more immediate neigh ourhood of houses, as well on account of their rapid growth, as from the massiveness of their foliage, and from their being the earliest trees to bud, and the latest to cast their leaves. There are some very lovely, though few very lordly dwellings, scattered along the shores of this island. You will remember how picturesque these

shores are; the one washed by the magnificent waters of the Hudson, and the other by that arm of the sea styled the East River, which runs round the head of Long Island. I know not if you ever navigated this curious channel. The whirlpools of Hell-gate are, at high water, with good pilotage, passed by sailing vessels without much hazard, and by steam-boats without any hazard, in almost all states of the tide: those huge leviathans pointing their way steadily through the narrow channels which wind among the whirling eddies that boil on either hand, styled respectively the greater and lesser pots.

AMERICAN OPINIONS.

It is truly interesting to listen to an intelligent American when he speaks of the condition and resources of his country; and this not merely when you find him in the more polished circles of society, but when toiling for his subsistence with the saw or spade in his hand. I have never yet conversed with the man who could not inform you upon any fact regarding the past history and existing institutions of his nation, with all the readiness and accuracy with which a school-boy, fresh from his studies, might reply to your queries upon the laws of Lycurgus, or the twenty-seven years' war of the Pelopon

nesus.

Putting some questions a few days since to a farmer whom I met in a steamboat, I could not help remarking to him, when, in reply to my questions, he had run through the geography, soil, climate, &c. of his vast country, just as if its map had been stretched before him, with the catalogue of all its exports and imports, that he seemed as intimately acquainted with the produce and practicabilities of the United States as he could be with those of his own farm.

Some weeks since, crossing the North river in one of the fast-sailing sloops, which crowd in such multitudes upon these waters, I observed a man at one end of the little vessel, who first attracted my attention by his interesting appearance. He was well dressed in the plain garb of a working farmer. His silvered hairs and deeply-lined countenance told that he was approaching the last resting-place of all human travellers, while his unbent figure and mild aspect told, also, that he was approaching it without anxiety. Entering into conversation with him, I learut that he was a Jersey farmer, who remembered the declaration of Indepen

dence,