BURMA, as now known to Europe, was for merly the site of four kingdoms, viz. Arakan, Tha-htun, Martaban, and Pegu. It is still subject to two dominions, being partly a British province and partly under a Burmese ruler, the two portions being designated respectively British Burma and Independent Burma.
British Burma comprises territories conquered in the two wars of 1824-26 and 1852-53. The features of the country are of a. varied character. The Yoma mountains and the Tenasserim range stand prominently to the view. On the Arakan coast is the Naf estuary ; and there also are the Mru and Koladyn or Arakan rivers. In the Pegu district are the Irawadi, the Hlaing or Rangoon rivers, the Pegu, Sitang, and Bhileng ; in Tenas serim the Salwin and the river of Tavoy.
The British portion consists of the long strip of land lying between lat. 9° 55' and 20° 50' N., and long. 92° and 99° E., an area of 88,556 square miles, with a population in 1881 of 3,707,646. Arakan. — Males, 384,045 ; females, 257,963 ; total, 562,008, against a total of 484,363 in 1872, thus showing an increase of 77,645, or 16 per cent. Pegu.— Males, 1,249,346 ; females, 1,081,061 ; total, 2,330,407, as against 1,662,658 in 1872, or In increase of 668,349, or 402 per cent. Tenas serim.—Males, 431,270 ; females, 380,548 ; total, 311,818, as against 600,727 in 1872, or an increase Df 211,091, or 34 per cent. The totals for the ?attire province are—males, 1,984,661 ; females, 1,719,572 ; total, 3,707,606, as against 2,747,148 n 1872, showing an increase of 957,085, or per cent. Rangoon in 1872 contained a population Df 98,745 ; it now contains 132,004, showing an ncrease of 33,259, or 36.6 per cent. In 1872 the population of Moulmein was returned at 46,472.
In 1881 it was returned at 53,080, or an increase of 14 per cent.
A treaty is said to have been entered into in 1757 between the Indian and Burmese Govern ments, and in 1795 Captain Michael Symes was sent as envoy to Ava ; but from 1797 disputes regarding Arakan began, and fugitives into Chitta gong were in 1798 demanded from the British. On this Colonel Symes returned to Rangoon, where he was not treated with ordinary civility by the governor, and he left for Bengal in January 1803. After this, Captain Canning was sent on two occasions, the latter in 1809. On the first he
was treated discourteously, but on the second with civility. In 1811 the Arakanese rebelled, and invaded Burmese territory ; and in 1811 Captain Canning was again sent to mediate. Subsequently to that year the Burmese officers in Arakan more than once made demands for the surrender of Arakanese refugees, and even made pretensions to the sovereignty of Bengal as far as the city of Murshidabad, as territory pertaining to the king dom of Arakan. In 1819 they interfered in Assam, and in 1824 they invaded Cachar. War was declared against Burma on the 5th March 1824, and, after two campaigns under Sir A. Campbell, a treaty of peace was signed at Yan daboo on the 24th February 1826, on which occasion parts of Assam, Arakan, and Tenasserim were ceded to the British. Subsequently, in 1851, in consequence of the Burmese refusing redress to a British shipowner whom they had injured at Rangoon, war was again declared, and was conducted successfully by General Godwin. Rangoon fell to a combined naval and military force on the 14th April 1852, and when peace was declared, all Pegu and Arakan were retained by the British.
British Burma may be geographically divided into five portions, viz., (1) Arakan, stretching from the Naf estuary, which separates the pro vince from Chittagong, to Cape Negrais, and consisting of a comparatively narrow strip of country between the sea and a high mountain chain ; (2) Pegu, the valley of the Irawadi, which, divided from the Sitang valley by the Pegu Yoma range, unites with it in its southern por tion; to the eastward is the chain of hills which forms the watershed between the Sitang and the Salwin rivers, and on the west the Anouk pek - toung-myeng, literally, the high western range of mountains, sometimes called the Arakan Yoma range ; (3) the valley of the Salwin ; and (4) Tenasserini, a narrow strip, like Arakan, reach ing down to the Pakehan stream in 9° 2' N. lat., and separated from Siam by a lofty chain of bills running from north to south nearly parallel to the coast, at a distance of from 30 to 40 miles inland, but approaching nearer to the sea at its southern extremity; (5) The numerous islands off the Tenasserim coast, known as the Mergui Archi pelago.