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 CHAPTER XI

JOURNEYS OF EXPLORATION IN BURMA

HE Burmese war of 1826 forced upon the atten- tion of the Government of India a recognition of the perilously scant measure of knowledge at its disposal concerning the topography of the country lying beyond its borders. The only part of upper Burma which at that time was known to Europeans was the Irawadi River from Rangoon and Bassein to Ava, over which so many British envoys had travelled on humili- ating embassies. Lieutenant Woods, who accompanied Symes to Ava in 1798, had made a survey of this part of the river, and Dr. Buchanan on the same occasion had collected a considerable amount of information relating to the districts traversed. Writing in 1835, Pemberton states that to the geographical and statistical facts ascer- tained by these officers no material addition had been made up to the time of the outbreak of the first Burmese war, and he mentions that the frontier officers had been blamed for this by the Government of India. forgotten that the attitude maintained by the British authorities in Calcutta towards the Court of Ava had fostered and flattered the natural arrogance of the Bur- mese; that the humiliations inflicted with impunity upon our envoys had brought us nothing but contempt; and that the Burmese frontier chiefs, sublimely conscious of their innate superiority to a mere white man, had reso-