Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/202

176 Mion river, Arracan town (now reduced to few huts), Jalak, Mai, and Aing, from whence there is a pass over the Yeomandang with a road to Ava, by which one division of the British army returned to Jalak from Melloon after the peace. Sandoway, and even Giva, may also be said to have inlaid navigation to Kyouk Phyoo, as there is a creek from the later communicating with Sandoway river.

The comparatively small number of Europeans that has yet resided in the Arracan province, renders it premature to judge of its climate; and though all whom we met spoke favourably of it, it certainly is not free from the diseases common to India. Jalak and Arracan towns have everything in their vicinity to make them unhealthy, being plaid in mere swamps, enveloped in thick fogs during the N.E. monsoon, and inundated during the opposite season. Our troops suffered much from dysentery and fever at both during the Burman war; while, on the sea-coast, at Kyouk Phyoo, Sandoway, and Negrais, they were comparatively healthy, those places having a cool sea-breeze with temperate nights nearly throughout the year. But at any distance from the sea, where the land is low, heavy fogs and dews prevail during the nights, with hot days. The S.W. monsoon begins early in May and lasts until end of October; it usually blows along the coast, except when interrupted (which it frequently is about the full and change of moon) by strong S. and S.W. winds, accompanied with heavy rain and sea, making it at such time necessary to approach this coast with great caution, as there is no place of shelter between Negrais and Ramree, with numerous dangers between them. From November to April the weather is fine and the water smooth;—an anchorage may then be found, on a muddy bottom, in from six to twenty fathoms, all the way from the Naaf to Negrais, with good landing. The rise of tide appears to be nowhere so great as at Kyouk Phyoo (sixteen feet in the springs). In January and February we experienced little or no current in the offing until to the southward of Cheduba; between it and Negrais it ran south from one to one mile and a half per hour. The islands on their northern and eastern sides are fertile, producing rice in abundance; also cotton, silk, and indigo; but only sufficient is cultivated for the consumption of the very few inhabitants, who am now reduced to little more than 200,000 in the whole province; almost every Burman, with all that was costly or respectable, having recrossed the Yeomandang when the province was ceded to the East India Company, who, with one regiment of sepoys, now hold the scattered remains of its ancient inhabitants (the Mughs) in perfect subjection. It is divided into thrm districts, Akyab, Ramree, and Sandoway, each governed by a civil judge or superintendent, under the immediate inspection of a