‘The travels of Ludovico di Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix, in Persia, India, and Ethiopia, A.D. 1503 to 1508’ [‎85] (120/492)

INTRODUCTION.
Ixxxv
towards the south," (Martaban,) and in due time
reached their destination.
Varthema correctly describes the Pegu of his day
as a great city, situated to the west of a beautiful
river, containing " good houses and palaces built of
stone, with lime," and as being enclosed within a
wall. The old town has long since disappeared, but
Symes tells us that its extent may still be traced by
the remains of the ditch which surrounded it, and
tliat the bricks from its ruins now pave the streets of
the new town. Among the vegetable productions of
the kingdom, its splendid timber-trees and enormous
bamboos, and, among the animals, the abundance of
civet-cats, are particularly noticed. The chief mer
chandize of the place was in jewels, and the mines of
Capellan, which Tavernier a century and a half later /
locates in a mountain twelve days'^journey from
Sirian, are mentioned as the great source of rubies.
In his account of the Peguese army, our author
makes the singular statemeiH that it contained one
thousand Christians like those found in barnau, mean
ing thereby Nestorians. As there is not the slightest
evidence to prove that so large a number of native
Christians ever existed in Pegu, I have been led to
suppose that Varthema had heard that many of the
soldiers, like the Buddhists in general, believed in a
trinity, or, as Yule explains it in commenting on a
similar remark made by Nicolo de' Conti, " the Triad
of Buddha, Dharma, and Sancja" and incontinently
christianized them. The same writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. , in another
place, quotes the old Geographer in Hamusio as iden-