The Burmese seem to have been an intruding race, conquering from north to south, and the boundaries of their kingdom have greatly varied. On their first advance from Arakan, they appear to have conquered the northern part of the ancient kingdom of the Mon, for their capital was for 395 years at Promo. In the era of their greatest stability and prosperity, their capital was at Pagan (probably the place of that name above Ave), from the second to the middle of the 14th century A.D. It was not till the middle of the 16th century A.D. that they succeeded in annexing Pegu. But in the middle of the 18th the Mon threw off the yoke, and in their turn subjugated all Burma for a short period. The Burma capital had moved up the river from Promo to Pagan, from Pagan to Ploys, from Panya. to Ava, from Ave to Amarapura, and thence, in 1822, to Mandalay, where it now is.
In the Burmese chronological table translated in Craw furd's Embassy, are the following events :— s.c.
Angwa (Ava), and began to reign ; and Chitkaing and Panya were de stroyed.
1752 1114 Alaung b'hura (Alompra) began to reign at Mut-cho-bo (Monchabo).
1781 1143 His cousin Paing ka cha, commonly called Maung-mang, son of U-pa-ra ja at Ava, succeeded the same year by his uncle Pa-dem-mang, or Man-ta ri-kri, son of Alaung-b'hura, and foun der of Ama-ra-pura.
1822 1184 Ava re-built and made the capital.
Independent Burma is ruled by a king, with a chief council, the Illut-dan, composed of four Meng-gyi, four At-ween-wun, and four Wan -da-lay. Burmans differ from the Anamese in being stouter and darker, and in the head being Daya-Poly nesian or Turanian oval, and not obtusely ovoid. The head varies greatly, and the coarser forms show a tendency to the Binua contraction of the forehead, rendering the lateral expansion of the forehead very marked. The normal or non Indianized Burman head appears in many respects to resemble the coarse Sumatran, Javan, Borneon, and Polynesian. This softened Turanian type is decidedly allied to the oblong square and oval Chinese type, and not to the ovoid and orbicular type of the Tibetan, some of the Himalaya Gangetic, the Anam, and the Celebesian tribes. The Burmans on the west more often resemble the handsome Asianesian tribes found in Borneo, some parts of East Indonesia, and Polynesia. Burmans and Malays are somewhat stouter than the Siamese, the average height being probably about 5 feet 2 inches.
The royal family have customs partly Scythk, partly Aryan. They claim descent from the Solar king of Kapilawasta (which was the capital of Sud dhodana), and one of the royal titles is Ne duvet bhu-yeng,' sun-descended monarch. A peacock
is borne on the royal standard, and the figures of a peacock and a hare are painted on the king's throne. The Abeit theik or Water Libation is offered on the accession of a new sovereign. In the royal family, the custom is continued of marriage between half brothers and sisters, and the king's eldest daughter remains unmarried.
Burma has a rich soil, producing in abun dance all the cereals, millets, pulses, and oil-seeds, valuable timbers, fibres, cotton, indigo, catechu, lac, caoutchouc, tea, coffee, tobacco, mustard, sugars from the cane, palmyra, betel, yam, sweet potato, and the potato. A tea plant also, supposed to be the Elmodendron Persicum, which furnishes the chief ingredient in the Hia-pet or pickled tea. Amongst its mineral products may be named gold, silver, iron, tin, lead, antimony, copper, bismuth. Quarries of marble are worked near Atnarapura. Coal has been discovered on the Ira wadi. Ruby mines are very productive ; sapphires occur, and garnets ; earth-oil is largely obtained from wells. A binoxide of tin occurs in abun dance in the streams of the Tavoy and Mergui districts. Lodes have been struck, but they have been found to fine away. Once-washed stream tin yields 70 per cent., and twice-washed 75 per cent., of pure metal. The mercantile products are rice, timber, silk, lacquer ware ; and the people are famed for their gold and silver work, and for their woodcarving; rice, of which the yearly product is a million tons, employs, with other articles of produce, 1,200,000 tons of shipping, of which 1,000,000 tons are British. Of teak wood, 150,000 tons are exported in the year,-86,000 tons to India, and 64,000 tons to Europe, chiefly to Britain. The approximate value of the whole is X,1,000,000 sterling. Rice cultivation is chiefly in the valleys and the delta. The amount of the rainfall varies greatly,—in Promo about 43 inches, and at Sandoway 230 inches.
Caoutchouc trees are abundant in the Bhamo and Mogoung districts, estimated at nearly half a million. The galena of Bandwen and Tounghoo mountains is highly argentiferous ; precious ser pentine also occurs, and the gems of Capelan (Kyat Pen) are famed. The larger wild animals are, elephants, rhinoceros, unicorn and bicornis, hog, tiger, leopard, bear, deer, bovidae, por poises.—Forbes' Burmah; Mason's Burmah ; Craw ford; Yule's Embassy ; Oldham in do., p. 335 ; Prinsep's Antiquities; Peschel; Aitcheson's Treaties; Bishop Bigandet ; Imp. Gaz.