countries, o f their revolutions and contra-revolutions, that we
dare not deny our affent to, or controvert the relations o f writers.
T h e great branch of the Delta is immediately to the eaft o f
Cape Negrais. It is called the Perfaim river, from a town feated
about feventy miles from the fea, on it? eaftern banks. In I75&
we had a factory on the oppofite lide. The channel is very wide
and deep, having molt o f the way fix and feven fathoms o f
water. On each fide are navigable canals, that probably infulate-
part o f the 'flat country to the eaft and to the weft. On the
eaftern part there is an inland communication from this river
quite to that o f Pegu, or the Siriam river, as there is through
I s l e OF N e- the Sunderbunds of Bengal. Negrais ifle, marihy and wooded,,
ckais, jjes j uq within the entrance; and on the outfide is Diamond
ifle, fmall, and furrounded with rocks. Immediately before th e
front of the whole Delta are banks o f mud or fand, o f great
extent, formed by the waters of the Ava depofiting their foulload
before the mouths o f the feveral difcharges. The Marcura
Metropolis o f Ptolemy flood in about the middle o f the Delta, and
muft have had it's navigable approach. I do not know that any
o f the difcharges are at prefent ufefnl in navigation, like the:
channels between the iflands o f the Sunderbunds, till we reach
the entrance of that which leads to the town o f Siriam. This,,
S i r i a m . known by the name o f the Siriam, is a branch o f the river o f
Pegu, and contributes to form another Delta.- The town is-
about thirty miles from the entrance ; near it are factories, belonging
to the French, Rnglijh, and Dutch. Raynal* fays, that
the Armenians carry on a great trade in topazes, fapphires, ame-
* Hift. o f Europ. Set. vol. ii. p.« I4S*-
thyfts,.
thyfts, and rubies. The river was known to Ptolemy by the
title o f Befynga, and gave its name to the modem river o f
Pegu.
T h e other exports o f Pegu are teek timber, elephants, ivory, E x p o r t s ,
bees-wax, lac, iron, tin, indigo, oil from different woods, oil of
earth, or Naptba, and o f filh. Here are mines o f gold and filver,
but neither o f thefe are worked. The iron is native, and found in
maffes o f fifteen or twenty pounds weight, and ready for the ma-
nufacturer; alfo plenty o f fulphur and faltpetre, but the exportation
o f the laft is moft f t r it ly prohibited. Rice is cultivated in
great abundance in the low lands of the country, but no attention
is paid to any fort o f manufatures, except that o f cotton,
for home confumption.
I m a y obferve, that the bees of the torrid zone are the fame Bees;
with th^European, there being only one fpecies producing honey,
which is th&Apis Mellijica. No attempts are made, either in India
or the hotter parts of Africa, to hive thefe admirable and ufeful
iiife ts ; they inhabit the hollows'of trees, from which their trea-
fures are taken.
L a c is the production of another infect, a fpecies o f Chermes, L a c .
undefcribed by Linnaus. Doctor Roxburgh, a naturalift now
rifing in Hindoojian, gives us an account of its operations, in
the Philofophical Tranfations*, under the name o f Chermes
Lacca. This, like the bee, forms cells, pentagons, hexagons,
and irregular fquares, which, at Samulcotta, in Orixa, the
Doctor’s refidence, are affixed to the branches of the Mimofa
Cinerea, the Mimofa Glauca of Koenig, and a new fpecies called
by the Gentoos, Conda Corinda. The infects are very fmall; they
♦ Vol. lxxxi. p. 228. tab. vi,
C a firft