PEGU or Pai-gu, an administrative division of the province of British Burma. Area, 9159 square miles ; population (1881), 2,323,512. Pegu, its chief town, was captured 3d June 1852, and Pegu district was annexed by proclamation on 20th December 1852. Pegu has four great mountain ranges: the range separating Arakan from Pegu is about 4000 feet high ; the range separating the valley of the Irawadi from that of the Sitang, about 2000 feet high ; the Martaban and Tenasserim ranges, about 5000 feet ; and the fourth or most eastern separates the Sitang and Salwin rivers, and extends into the large and compact mountain group of Younzallen to the south-east of Touughoo. The area of this lofty region is about 100 square miles, and several peaks rise to 7000 and 8000 feet. The inhabitants consist principally of Burmans, Talaing or Yon, Karen, Karen-nee or Red Karen ; Khyin, whose women tattoo their faces ; the Yeb-baing of the Yoma range and the Shan, who form separate communities. Pegu is described by European travellers in the 16th century as of great size, strength, and magnificence. Caesar Frederick was here in the latter portion of the 16th century. When Aloung-bhura overran and conquered Pegu in the middle of the 18th century, he used every effort to annihilate all traces of Talaing nationality. He destroyed every house in the town, and dis persed the inhabitants.
The Pegu or Zamayee valley lies to the east of Phoungye, from which it is separated by another branch of the Yoma. This valley is enclosed on all sides by hills ; it is about 40 or 50 miles in length from S.S.E. to N.N.W., which is the direction in which it lies, and 20 miles in breadth from E. to W. The Zamayee river is large, and navigable for small craft in the rains for a distance of 60 or 80 miles above Pegu, to the extremity of the valley; and although only about knee-deep in the dry season, it rises 40 feet in the rains.
The mountains extending along the N.W. side of the valley, separating it from Phoungye, the Hlaine, and Tharawadtly, are of considerable extent and elevation, and form a part of the Yoma range. On the E. side it is separated from the plains of Tounghoo and Shoay-gyeen by a bower branch of the same chain, and finally it in enclosed on the S. by it low hilly tract, through the river passes by a series of small defiles to l'egu. The rains pour down at the rate of 150 inches in the course of a monsoon, and the rivers rise :10 to 40 feet. The silting up of the alluvial deposit at the mouth of the Pyne-Choung creek is doubtless due to this cause. If native tradition is correct, 2000 years ago the sea washed within 8 or 10 miles of the old royal city of Pegn.—Dr. M'Clelland, in Selec. Itecord.q, Govt. of India, Foreign Dept. No. ix. p. 8 ; Imp. Gaz. vii.
l'E II. CHIN. White. Pell-chi, Iris tlorentina. The root is a favourite cosmetic with the ladies of China. Peh-fen, white lead. Peh-kiang, Zin giber oflicinale. Pell-kill, a Zingiberaceous rhi zome obtained in China, in Shansi, Kwei-Chau, Kiangnan, used in bremoptysis, plaids's, and other ailments.—Smith.
1'E11410, written Pci-ho, the White River of ('hina. Below Pekin it and the Sha-ho river join, and the united streams bear the name of Pe-lio, and disembogue into the Gulf of Pe-chi-li. —Yale, Cathay, ii. p. 259.