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Hogs, dogs, cats, besides asses, sheep, and goats, which last are but little known, are little cared for, and they are allowed to pursue their own paths unmolested. The camel, an animal, which as Mr. Crawfurd says, is “sufficiently well suited to the upper portions of the country,” is unknown to the Burmese.[17]

Wild animals of many descriptions abound in Burmah, still it is a remarkable fact, noticed by Crawfurd, that neither wolves, jackals, foxes, nor hyenas, are to be found in the country. Many species of winged game abound, as also hares.

The Indo-Chinese nations are considered by Prichard[18] to consist of various races, while Pickering[19] seems to be able to detect but two, the Malay, and, in an isolated position, the Telingan. It is therefore difficult with such contradictory evidence to arrive at the probable result. But as, without a slight sketch of this important subject, my work would fall under the just imputation of incompleteness, I shall venture to give some account of the races of Burmah, and I the rather take Prichard as my chief guide, as his research is the completer of the two, notwithstanding that Pickering has shown himself well able through his work to distinguish the Malay race from every other, in the most difficult and delicate cases. I shall not trouble the reader with any account of the adjacent races, but occupy myself solely with the principal nations under the Burman dominion. And first of the people of Pegu:[20] they inhabit the Delta of the Irawadi, and the low coast which terminates in the hilly country of the Burmans or Maramas. They are called by the Burmans, Talain; but their own name for themselves is Mân or Môn. The Pegu race, we shall see in the course of its history, was once very powerful, and its ascendancy remained for many years, and during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the empire of Pegu is often spoken of in the Portuguese chronicles as powerful and magnificent. Their language is entirely different from that of the Burmese and Siamese, as Leyden judged,[21] and Low has since amply proved.[22] In Low’s opinion, the Mân is the most original of the Indo-Chinese language. They use the Pali alphabet, and probably had it before the Burmans.