This Money Is Very Weighty, As Forty _Byzas_ Make A Porters Burden.

As in receiving, so in paying money, a public weigher of money must be employed.

The merchandises exported from Pegu are gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, spinels, great quantities of benzoin, long-pepper, lead, lac, rice, wine, and some sugar. There might be large quantities of sugar made in Pegu, as they have great abundance of sugar-canes, but they are given as food to the elephants, and the people consume large quantities of them in their diet. They likewise spend many of these sugar-canes[167] in constructing houses and tents for their idols, which they call _varely_ and we name pagodas. There are many of these idol houses, both large and small, which are ordinarily constructed in a pyramidical form, like little hills, sugar-loaves or bells, some of them being as high as an ordinary steeple. They are very large at the bottom, some being a quarter of a mile in compass. The inside of these temples are all built of bricks laid in clay mortar instead of lime, and filled up with earth, without any form or comeliness from top to bottom; afterwards they are covered with a frame of canes plastered all over with lime to preserve them from the great rains which fall in this country. Also about these _varely_ or idol-houses they consume a prodigious quantity of leaf gold, as all their roofs are gilded over, and sometimes the entire structure is covered from top to bottom; and as they require to be newly gilded every ten years, a prodigious quantity of gold is wasted on this vanity, which occasions gold to be vastly dearer in Pegu than it would be otherwise.

[Footnote 167: This is certainly an error, and Cesar Frederick has mistaken the bamboo cane used in such erections for the sugar-cane. - E.]

It may be proper to mention, that in buying jewels or precious stones in Pegu, he who has no knowledge or experience is sure to get as good and as cheap articles as the most experienced in the trade. There are four men at Pegu called _tareghe_ or jewel-brokers, who have all the jewels or rubies in their hands; and when any person wants to make a purchase he goes to one of these brokers, and tells him that he wants to lay out so much money on rubies; for these brokers have such prodigious quantities always on hand, that they know not what to do with them, and therefore sell them at a very low price. Then the broker carries the merchant along with him to one of their shops, where he may have what jewels he wants according to the sum of money he is disposed to lay out. According to the custom of the city, when the merchant has bargained for a quantity of jewels, whatever may be the amount of their value, he is allowed to carry them home to his house, where he may consider them for two or three days; and if he have not himself sufficient knowledge or experience in such things, he may always find other merchants who are experienced, with whom he may confer and take counsel, as he is at liberty to shew them to any person be pleases; and if he find that he has not laid out his money to advantage, he may return them back to the person from whom he had them without loss or deduction.

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