; for the weight rises and falls greatly
from place to place, and he may be likewise deceived by false _ganzas_
or too much alloyed with lead. For this reason, when any one is to
receive payment he ought to have along with him a public weigher of
money, engaged a day or two before he commences that business, whom he
pays two _byzas_ a-month, for which he is bound to make good all your
money and to maintain it good, as he receives it and seals the bags with
his own seal, and when he has collected any considerable sum he causes
it to be delivered to the merchant to whom it belongs. This money is
very weighty, as forty _byzas_ make a porters burden. As in receiving,
so in paying money, a public weigher of money must be employed.

The merchandises exported from Pegu are gold, silver, rubies, sapphires,
spinels, great quantities of benzoin, long-pepper, lead, lac, rice,
wine, and some sugar. There might be large quantities of sugar made in
Pegu, as they have great abundance of sugar-canes, but they are given as
food to the elephants, and the people consume large quantities of them
in their diet. They likewise spend many of these sugar-canes[167] in
constructing houses and tents for their idols, which they call _varely_
and we name pagodas. There are many of these idol houses, both large and
small, which are ordinarily constructed in a pyramidical form, like
little hills, sugar-loaves or bells, some of them being as high as an
ordinary steeple. They are very large at the bottom, some being a
quarter of a mile in compass. The inside of these temples are all built
of bricks laid in clay mortar instead of lime, and filled up with earth,
without any form or comeliness from top to bottom; afterwards they are
covered with a frame of canes plastered all over with lime to preserve
them from the great rains which fall in this country. Also about these
_varely_ or idol-houses they consume a prodigious quantity of leaf gold,
as all their roofs are gilded over, and sometimes the entire structure
is covered from top to bottom; and as they require to be newly gilded
every ten years, a prodigious quantity of gold is wasted on this
vanity, which occasions gold to be vastly dearer in Pegu than it would
be otherwise.

[Footnote 167: This is certainly an error, and Cesar Frederick has
mistaken the bamboo cane used in such erections for the sugar-cane.--E.]

It may be proper to mention, that in buying jewels or precious stones in
Pegu, he who