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There being no lawful heir to the kingdom of Siam, Pretiel a religious Talagrepo, bastard brother to him who was poisoned, was raised to the throne by common consent in the beginning of the year 1549. Seeing the affairs of Siam in confusion, the king of the Birmans, who was likewise king of Pegu, resolved to conquer that kingdom.
Martaban is in lat. 16° 40' N. So that the difference of latitude is 8° 40', and the distance cannot be less than 250 miles. Of Martaban and the Kingdom of Pegu.
If they once get to anchor on the coast, they may save their voyage with great labour. There also goes a large ship from Bengal every year, laden with all kinds of fine cotton cloth, and which usually arrives in the river of Pegu when the ship of San Thome is about to depart. The harbour which these two ships go to is called Cosmin.
There are no horses in this country, but many elephants, which are not so large as those of Pegu, which are of prodigious size; yet it is said all other elephants are afraid of those of Ceylon, and refuse to fight them, though small. The women of this island wear a cloth round their middles, reaching only to the knees, all the rest of their bodies being bare.
And though Vartomannus was not an Eye witness of what he relates, that the King of Pegu, one of the Chief Kings of the East-Indies, had a true Carbuncle of that Bigness and Splendour, that it shin'd very Gloriously in the Dark, and though Garcias ab Horto, the Indian Vice-Roys Physician, speaks of another Carbuncle, only upon the Report of one, that he Discours'd with, who affirmed himself to have seen it; yet as we are not sure that these Men that gave themselves out to be Eye-witnesses speak true, yet they may have done so for ought we know to the contrary.
Also from San Thome they send great store of cotton yarn, dyed red by means of a root called saia, which colour never washes out. Every year there goes a great ship from San Thome to Pegu laden with a valuable cargo of these commodities.
The land is very high on the sea coast, but after getting within the bar, it is very low and much intersected with rivers, so that they go everywhere in boats, which they call paraos, in which many of them dwell with their wives and children. From the bar of Negrais to the city of Pegu, is ten days journey by the rivers.
He went in a junk of the country, passing Cape Rachado, and thence to the city of Pera, on the river Salano, on which river are many other villages, where Duarte had been before; and he afterwards went by Tanaçerim to the city of Martavan, in 15° N. and the city of Pegu in 17° N. This was the first Portuguese who travelled in that kingdom, and who brought back a good account of the country and people.
In India the Russian menace seemed to necessitate the adoption of a policy towards the independent states of the North-West which brought an extension of the frontier, between 1839 and 1849, to the great mountain ranges which form the natural boundary of India in this direction; while a succession of intolerable and quite unprovoked aggressions by the Burmese led to a series of wars which resulted in the annexation of very great territories in the east and north-east: Assam, Aracan, and Tenasserim hi 1825; Pegu and Rangoon in 1853; finally, in 1885-86, the whole remainder of the Burmese Empire.
The kingdom of Aracan is in the mid-way between Bengal and Pegu, and the king of Pegu is continually devising means of reducing the king of Aracan under subjection, which hitherto he has not been able to effect, as he has no maritime force, whereas the king of Aracan can arm two hundred galleys or foists; besides which he has the command of certain sluices or flood-gates in his country, by which he can drown a great part of his country when he thinks proper, when at any time the king of Pegu endeavours to invade his dominions, by which be cuts off the way by which alone the king of Pegu can have access.
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