4
.A r a c a n . All this might have been executed, had not the defign been discovered.
The unhappy Sujah attempted to efcape towards Pegu;
he Was foon overtaken. His ion, fultan Banque, defended him-
felf with a courage worthy of his birth, till overpowered with
numbers, and fainting under his wounds, he was feized, and
with his two little brothers, his filters, and his mother, carried
away. As to Sujah, he, with one woman, an eunuch, and
two other perfons, in afcending a mountain, was knocked down
with a itone by his purfuers. The epnuch bound up his wounded
head with a turban, and they both efcaped into the woods.
Many relations were fpread refpedling this event. In general he
was fuppofed to have died either famiihed with hunger, or
fallen a prey to wild beafts. Mr. Halrymple had picked up a
itory, that Sujah efcaped to Soolo, an iile between that of Borneo
and Magindanao, where he long led an eremitical life ; that he
died there, and that a tomb was eredted over his grave, to this
day an objedt o f veneration with the Mahometans.,
T he tragical relation does not end here. Sultan Banque, and
other fugitives who were brought back, were at fir it treated
with a tolerable degree o f lenity; the king even took to wife
one of Sujah's daughters. This did not prevent Banque, and hi?,
companions from entering into another confpiracy, which was
detedled. The king o f Aracan determined to root out this, ill-
fated family; he caufed the heads of the men to be cut off with
blunt axes, the women to be immured, and ftarved to death; the
lady alone whom he had honored with his bed was faved.
T he great quantity of gold and diamonds which had been
brought into the country by Sujah, proved the caufe o f dreadful
wars
Wars between the two fons of the king o f Aracan, who fuc-
ceeded him in 1690 ; they quarrelled about the divifion o f the
treafure, and never ceafed from contefting the prize till both
the competitors were deftroyed. Mariy' o f the diamonds (as is
fuppofed) were afterwards fold to thcDutcb, who happened to
touch at Aracan, at very low prices, by reafon o f the ignorance
o f the poffeifofs.
T h e next kingdom is that o f Ava. I ihall comprehend in it K i n g d o m or
c . § H . . . A v a . three; that ot Ava proper, Buraghmah, or, as it is vulgarly
called, Burmah, and Pegu. They once formed fo many independent
ftates, governed by their refpedtive monarchs ; but are
now hy conqueft confolidated into one, being fubdued by the
king o f Burmagh. His dominions extend from the province o f
Xunan, in China, as far fouth as the mouths o f the Ava, a trail
o f eight hundred miles. The ftandard of Mahomet was never
eredled in thefe kingdoms; all the inhabitants are rank idolaters;
their mode o f worihip and their rites agree in many points with
thofe o f the Hindoos, and they allow the doftrine o f tranfmigraticn.
- Their pagodas, and thofe o f Pegu, very much refemble
in form that o f a bell tent. The more northern part is. the
kingdom o f Burmagh; that o f Meekly, tributary to it-,- forms
on our maps a large vacant fpace to the weft, divided' by a vaft
chain o f mountains from Silbet and Piper a. Ro/buan, another
void, is to the fouth o f Meekly. The kingdom o f Aracan feparates
Burmagh, for a confiderable extent, from the eaftern part
o f the- bay o f Bengal. The coaft o f Ava fucceeds, and runs,
walhed by the fea, as far as Cape Negrais, an extent o f above
two hundred miles.
, T he