Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/British Burmah
BURMAH, British, the country acquired by the British Indian Government after the two wars with the Burman empire, is situated between 10° and 22° N. lat., and 92° and 100° E. long. It is bounded on the N. by Independent Burmah, on the E. by Siam, on the S. by the Indian Ocean, and on the W. by the Bay of Bengal and the Chittagong division of Bengal. The province of British Burmah extends along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal, and is geographically divided into four portions,—Arakán, extending from the Náf estuary to Cape Negrais, and consisting of a narrow strip of country between the sea and the high mountain chain called Yoma; the valley of the Irawadi, which, divided from the Sittang valley by the Pegu Yoma range, unites with it in its southern portion; the valley of the Salwin; and Tenasserim, a narrow strip, separated from Siam by a lofty chain of hills running from north to south. For administrative purposes the country is divided into three commissionerships, Arákán, Pegu, and Tenasserim, and into fifteen districts, viz., Akyab, Ramree, Sandoway, Northern Arákán, Rangoon, Bassein, Myanoung, Prome, Thayet-myo, Toungoo, Shwegyen, Amherst, Tavoy, Mergui, and Salwin.
Physical Aspects.—The greater part of the province is covered with hills, forests, estuaries, and river beds. The eastern and southern part is particularly mountainous, thinly populated, and much intersected by streams. In the central part of the province the valley of the Irawadi unites with the valley of the Sittang at its lower end, and forms an extensive plain, stretching from Cape Negrais on the west to Martaban on the east. The more northern of these valleys are rugged and hilly, and are so densely covered with jungle that but little cultivation can be carried on. A chain of mountains called the Yoma range forms the boundary of the Arakán division on the east. It is the continuation of the Pátkoi and Baráil range, which shoots forth from the Himálayas at their north-eastern extremity, runs south, forms the eastern boundary of Assam and Bengal, and turning south-east, gradually diminishes both in breadth and elevation till it ends in the rocky promontory of Cape Negrais. Blue Mountain, one of its peaks, on the northern boundary of the province, is said to rise 8000 feet above the sea-level; but within the province the range nowhere attains a height much above 4000 feet. The same Yoma range forms the western boundary of the Irawadi valley; and the Poung Loung range, rising to a supposed height of 7000 feet, bounds the Sittang valley towards the east. The Pegu Yoma range forms the watershed between these two streams. The mountains of Tenasserim rise to a height of 5000 feet, with a breadth varying from 10 to 40 miles; they are covered with pathless jungle, and devoid of human habitations of any kind.
Rivers.—Beginning from the extreme west the following are the principal rivers:—The Náf estuary is on the western boundary. The Mroo River, an arm of the sea, about 40 miles to the eastward, is from 3 to 4 miles broad at its mouth. The Koladan or Arakán River rises near the Blue Mountain in about 23° N. lat., and is navigable for 40 miles from its mouth by vessels of 300 or 400 tons burden. The Talak, Aeng, Sandoway, Toungoop, and Gwa are streams of minor importance. The mouth of the last, however, forms a good port and haven for steamers or vessels of from 9 to 10 feet draught. The Irawadi rises in about 28° N. lat. and 97° 30′ E. long., and flows for upwards of 600 miles before reaching the British possessions, through which it has a course of 240 miles to the sea in a S.S.W. direction. As it approaches the coast it divides into numerous branches, converting the lower portion of the valley into a net-work of tidal creeks. Its principal branches are the Bassein River, Thekkay-thoung, Yuay, Dayaybhyoo, Pyenmaloo, Pyengazaloo, Dalla, Phyapoon, Donyan, Thanateat, and China Buckir rivers. It is navigable for river steamers as far as Bhamo, nearly 400 miles beyond the British frontier. The river when full runs about five miles an hour. The Hleing rises close to Prome, where it is called the Myitmakat stream, and flowing in a southerly direction nearly parallel to the Irawadi, it next takes the name of the Hleing, and finally of the Rangoon River, and falls into the sea a few miles below Rangoon. Its principal tributaries are the Nyoungdon, an offshoot of the Irawadi, and the Pegu and Poozoondoung rivers. It is navigable by vessels of the largest size for some distance above Rangoon, but owing to the Hastings shoal, formed at the junction of the Pegu, the Poozoondoung, and the Rangoon rivers, vessels of more than 6 feet draught cannot ascend beyond the shoal at low tide. The Sittang River rises far north of British territory, which it enters just about Toungoo, and flowing southwards, falls into the Gulf of Martaban, when it widens so rapidly that it is impossible to tell where the river ends and the gulf begins. Its principal tributary is the Shwegyen River. A bore, or tidal wave, sweeps up this river, and its effect is felt as far as Shwegyen town. The Biling River rises in the Poungloung hills, flows southward, and falls into the Gulf of Martaban. The Salwin River rises in Tibet, flows south through the Shan states, and falls into the sea at Moulmein. The Attaran rises in the chain of hills which forms the boundary between the kingdom of Siam and British Burmah, and flows in a south-westerly direction through dense teak forests and an almost uninhabited country. The Gyne has numerous villages on its banks, and is navigable for 180 miles by country boats. The Tenasserim River falls into the sea by two mouths, the northern of which is navigable for large ships.
There is only one canal in the province, connecting the Pegu and the Sittang rivers. The lakes are the Thoo, Lahgyin, and Kandaugyee.
A large part of the province is covered with forests, but the state reserved area only amounts to 133 square miles. The teak plantations lie in the Rangoon division. The total receipts from the forests in 1871-72 amounted to £77,240.
Population.—The total area of the province is 88,556 square miles; the population was returned by the census of 1872 at 2,747,148, giving an average of 31 inhabitants to the square mile. The Buddhists numbered 2,447,831, Mahometans 99,846, Hindus 36,658, Christians 52,299, and aborigines 110,514. The villages, townships, &c., numbered 14,107; the inhabited houses, 535,533. Only ten towns in the province had a population exceeding 10,000,—Rangoon, the capital, containing 98,745.
Internal Communication is chiefly carried on by water. Steamers ply on the Irawadi between Thayetmyo, Prome, Myanoung, Henzada, and Rangoon. There is also steam communication from Calcutta, via Akyab, to Rangoon and Moulmein, and between Tavoy and Mergui. There were, however, 814 miles of road in the province in 1871-72.
Mines.—The only mines in the province are those worked for tin in the southern portion of the Tenasserim division. This mineral (a binoxide) exists over a large extent of country in the Mergui and Tavoy districts, and is obtained by removing and washing the pebble and boulder deposits of the river beds. Samples of the tin-stone, once washed, have produced about 70 per cent. of metal, and twice washed 75 per cent. The ore is therefore very rich, and the metal produced is of excellent quality. Hitherto these deposits have been washed by Chinese and natives of the country in a very rough and unscientific manner, and the tin-stone is smelted in a most primitive way, the produce realized being 68 per cent. of metal. European capitalists have now begun to turn their attention to the subject, and arrangements are being made to lease out certain tracts. Coal exists on the banks of the Tenasserim River, and in other parts of the province, but it has never been worked to any extent. Lead has been found in Toungoo, and on Maingay's Island in the Mergui Archipelago, but nothing has been done towards utilizing it. This mineral also exists in the Shwegyen district, as well as gold, antimony ore, and iron-stone. The quantity of the precious metals is, however, very small, and the workers make but a poor living. Limestone exists in several parts of the province, and quarries are worked pretty extensively in Thayetmyo and Bassein; stone might also be excavated in Sandoway if a demand existed.
Manufactures.—Mills are employed in the seaport towns for husking rice and for sawing timber. There were in 1871-72 twenty-six steam rice mills in the province; five years before there were only three; and the number rapidly increases with the demand for rice for shipment to Europe, to the Straits, and to China. Silk and cotton goods are manufactured in large quantities, chiefly, however, for home use, and by small hand-looms. A loom forms a regular piece of furniture in a Burmese household; it is worked by the female members of the family. The cotton cloths thus manufactured are rough but strong; some of the silk goods fetch a high price. A coarse description of salt is made on the sea-coast, used chiefly in the preparation of Ngapee (a mess of half-salted, half-decomposed fish and other ingredients), which forms a favourite article of food among the Burmese. The manufacture of salt has lately fallen off, owing to the introduction of Liverpool salt, which undersells the local article. The other manufactures of the province consist of gold and silver bowls (of peculiar and elaborate workmanship), lacquered ware, carved and gilt work, and dyes, especially cutch, an extract of the Acacia Catechu.
Trade.—The total value of the trade of the province in 1871-72 was £10,777,705; exports, £5,452,148; imports, £5,325,557. The value of the sea-borne trade was—exports, £4,236,997; imports, £4,220,723—total, £8,457,721; and of the inland trade—exports, £1,245,150; imports, £1,104,832. The most important article of sea-borne exports is rice. The trade increased from 380,009 tons in 1865 to 470,893 tons in 1871, and made a sudden rise to 700,784 tons in 1872. Next in importance is the timber trade, shipments of which during the year 1872 amounted to 87,545 tons, of the value of £51,210. The other articles of export are cotton, cutch, hides, horns, ivory, jade stone, petroleum, rice and paddy, precious stones, stick-lac, tobacco, &c. The articles of import consist of betel-nut, cotton twist and yarn, crockery ware, cutlery, gunny bags, hardware; cotton, silk, and woollen piece goods; raw silk, spirituous liquors wines, beers, &c., sugar and tobacco.
Finances.—The gross revenue from all sources in 1871-72, £1,363,452, of which £1,217,053 was from imperial taxation, £37,320 for provincial services, and £109,079 from local funds. The land revenue of the province was £344,523. Owing to the sparse population and vast extent of country cultivable but uncultivated, the rates of assessment range low. No class of landed proprietors, like the zamindars of Bengal, exists in Burmah. The cultivators themselves hold the land from Government, the extent of their holdings averaging about 5 acres, The exceptions are, where grants of waste land have been made to Europeans or natives of India, but such grants are but little cultivated. The light land tax of the province is supplemented by a capitation tax, peculiar to Burmah; and by the rice duty, which, from the circumstances of the local trade, falls on the producer, and is equivalent to a tax of 14 per cent. ad valorem on this article of export. The capitation tax is a poll-tax on the male population of the province, from 18 to 60 years of age, with the exception of immigrants during the first five years of their residence, religious teachers, school masters, Government servants, and those unable to obtain their own livelihood. In 1871-72 it was levied on 556,035 persons, and yielded a revenue of £226,954. The expenditure on the civil administration of the province in 1871-72 was £497,002. For the protection of British Burmah 5016 fighting men, Europeans and natives, were maintained in 1871 at a total cost of £276,200. The strength of the police in 1871 was 5319. The prisons consist of two great central gaols, Rangoon and Moulmein, chiefly for long-term convicts, with twelve subordinate gaols and lock-ups.
Education has not made much progress in British Burmah under the English plan of public instruction; but the people have a wide-spread system of primary education of their own in the monastic schools. Setting aside these monastic schools, the educational machinery of the province consists of seven Government schools, educating 505 boys; fifteen aided missionary schools, teaching 1494 pupils; and twenty-two other unaided schools under Government inspection, teaching 499 pupils.
Christianity has spread largely among the Karen tribes, chiefly through the work of American missions.
Climate.—The climate of British Burmah is moist and depressing for part of the year, but cooler than that of India. Some of the forest tracts during the monsoons, and after the cold weather has set in, are impregnated with deadly malaria; but the coast and the frontier ranges are not unhealthy. The prevalent complaints amongst Europeans are fever, dysentery, and hepatic diseases, from which the natives also suffer. On the whole, however, the climate of British Burmah seems better adapted to the European constitution than any part of India, and of late the statistics of the British troops show a very low rate of disease and mortality. The rainfall varied in 1871 from 245.85 inches at Moulmein to 54.85 inches at Thayetmyo. The average temperature is greatly affected by the sea breeze,—being 80° Fahr. at the sea-coast, and 90° in the interior.
province of British Burmah is the chief commissioner and agent to the Governor-General of India, established under
a resolution of the Government of India, dated January 1862. The chief commissioner is assisted by a secretary and assistant-secretary, three commissioners of revenue and circuit, thirteen deputy-commissioners, one superintendent of hill-tracts, twenty-two assistant-commissioners, four collectors of sea-customs, a director of public instruction, an inspector-general of police, an inspector-general of prisons, and a conservator of forests. A political agent is established at the court of Mandalay, and an assistant political agent at Bhamo, for facilitating British trade with Independent Burmah and China. The judicial officers are—the recorder of Rangoon, the judicial commissioner, the judge of the town of Moulmein, the judge of the Small Cause Court, Rangoon, and three town magistrates. For history, see the preceding article.
BURMANN, Pieter (1668–1741), a Dutch classical scholar, was born at Utrecht on the 26th June 1668. He was educated at the public school in his native place, and at the age of thirteen entered the university. He devoted himself particularly to the study of the classical languages, and became unusually proficient in Latin composition. As he was intended for the legal profession he spent some years in attendance on the law classes. For about a year he studied at Leyden, paying special attention to philosophy and Greek. On his return to Utrecht he took the degree of doctor of laws (March 1688), and after travelling through Switzerland and part of Germany, settled down to the practice of law. In December 1691 he was appointed receiver of the tithes which were originally paid to the bishop of Utrecht, and five years later he was nominated to the professorship of eloquence and history. To this chair was soon added that of Greek and politics. In 1714 he paid a short visit to Paris and ransacked the libraries, bringing back a “great treasure of useful observations.” In the following year he was appointed successor to the celebrated Perizonius, who had held the chair of history, Greek language, and eloquence at Leyden. His numerous editorial and critical works spread his fame as a scholar throughout Europe, and engaged him in many of the stormy disputes which were then so common among men of letters. He died on the 31st March 1741.
Of his editions of classical works the following may be noted:—Phædrus, 1698; Horace, 1699; Valerius Flaccus, 1701; Petronius Arbiter, 1709; Velleius Paterculus, 1719; Quintilian, 1720; Ovid, 1727; Lucan, 1740. He also published an edition of Buchanan's works, continued Graevius's great work, Thesaurus Antiquitatum et Historiarum Italiæ, and wrote a small manual of Roman antiquities, Antiquitatum Romanarum Brevis Descriptio, 1711. His poems and orations were published after his death.
BURNES, Sir Alexander (1805–1841), a traveller in Central Asia, was born at Montrose in 1805. While serving in India, in the army of the East India Company, which he had joined in his seventeenth year, he made himself acquainted with Hindostani and Persian, and thus obtained an appointment as interpreter at Surat in 1822. Transferred to Cutch in 1826 as assistant to the political agent, he turned his attention more particularly to the history and geography of North-Western India and the adjacent countries, which at that time were very imperfectly known. His proposal in 1829 to undertake a journey of exploration through the valley of the Indus was not carried out owing to political apprehensions; but in 1831 he was sent to Lahore with a present of horses from King William to the Rajah Rungit Sing, and took advantage of the opportunity for extensive investigations. In the following years his travels were extended through Afghanistan, across the Hindu Kush to Bokhara and Persia. The narrative which he published on his visit to England in 1834 added immensely to our knowledge of the countries traversed, and was one of the most popular books of the time. The first edition brought the author the sum of £800, and his services were recognized not only by the Royal Geographical Society of London, but also by that of Paris. Soon after his return to India in 1835 he was appointed to the court of Sindh to secure a treaty for the navigation of the Indus; and in 1836 he undertook a political mission to Dost Mohammed at Cabul. On the restoration of Shah Shujah in 1839, he became regular political agent at Cabul, and remained there till his assassination in 1841 (November 2), during the heat of an insurrection. The calmness with which he continued at his post, long after the imminence of his danger was apparent, gives an heroic colouring to the close of an honourable and devoted life. A narrative of his later labours was published in 1842 under the title of Cabool.
BURNET, Gilbert (1643-1715), bishop of Salisbury,
was born at Edinburgh in 1643, and was descended of an
ancient family of the county of Aberdeen. His father had
been bred to the law, and was at the Restoration appointed
one of the lords of Session, with the title of Lord Crimond.
Gilbert, the youngest son, was at ten years of age sent to
Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he was admitted A.M.
before he was fourteen years of age. His own inclination
led him to the study of the civil and feudal law; but he afterwards
changed his views, and, to the great satisfaction of
his father, began to apply to divinity. He received ordination
before the age of eighteen; and Sir Alexander Burnet,
his cousin-german, offered him a benefice, which, however,
he refused to accept.
In 1663, about two years after the death of his father, he went to England; and after six months stay at Oxford and Cambridge, returned to Scotland, which he soon left again to make a tour of some months, in 1664, in Holland and France. At Amsterdam, by the help of a Jewish rabbi, he perfected himself in the Hebrew language; and likewise became acquainted with the leading men of the different persuasions tolerated in that country—Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Brownists, Papists, and Unitarians. In each of these sects he used frequently to declare he met with men of such unfeigned piety and virtue that he became fixed in a strong principle of universal charity, and an invincible abhorrence of all severities on account of religious dissensions.
Upon his return from his travels he was admitted minister of Saltoun, in which station he served five years in the most exemplary manner. He drew up a memorial, in which he took notice of the principal errors in the conduct of the Scottish bishops, which he observed not to be conformable to the primitive institution, and he sent a copy of it to several of them. This exposed him to their resentment; but to show he was not actuated by a spirit of ambition, he led a retired course of life for two years, which so endangered his health that he was obliged to abate his excessive application to study. In the year 1668 he was appointed professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow; and, according to the usual practice, he read his lectures in the Latin language. It was apparently at this period that he laid the chief foundation of that theological learning for which he became so distinguished. In 1669 he published his Modest and Free Conference between a Conformist and Nonconformist. He became acquainted with the duchess of Hamilton, who communicated to him all the papers belonging to her father and her uncle; upon which he drew up the Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, afterwards printed at London, in folio, in the year 1677. The duke of Lauderdale, hearing that he was engaged in this work, invited him to London, and introduced him to Charles II. He returned to Scotland, and married Lady Margaret Kennedy, daughter of the earl of Cassillis, a lady of great knowledge, and highly esteemed by the Presbyterians, to whose sentiments she was strongly inclined. As there was some disparity in their ages, that it might be