We have been obliged to forego our intention of publishing COLONEL LUARD'S admirable sketch of the explosion of the "Equitable," it being quite impossible in Calcutta to communicate its effect by a stone drawing.-EDS.

JOURNAL

OF

THE ASIATIC SOCIETY.

No. 96.-DECEMBER, 1839.

ART. I.-Third Report on Tenasserim-the surrounding Nations, -Inhabitants, Natives and Foreigners-Character, Morals and Religion. By JOHN WILLIAM HELFER, M. D.

Position of the Tenasserim Provinces.-The Tenasserim Provinces, excepting the Malay countries of Province Wellesley, Malacca, and Singapore, are the only isolated British possessions in India.

They are surrounded by the bay of Bengal, (hitherto the only road of communication), and by foreign states. The river Salween divides them from the Burmese kingdom of Pegu towards the north-west; the river Thounyee from the Shan states of Zimmay, Laboung, and Yaihaing towards the north; the range of mountains running from north to south through the whole Malay peninsula from the kingdom of Siam to the east; the river Packchan from the Siamo-Malay states to the south; the bay of Bengal and the Nicobar and Andaman islands front their west side.

Surrounding nations.-The nations which encircle the provnices are, therefore, the two rival nations of Burmah and Siam, possessing a tolerably consolidated, established, and regulated government, the tributary and dependent Siamo-Malays, and the Burmah Shans, the half savage Nicobarians, and the Andamanese cannibals.

The Burmese possessions incorporated with British India.-The Tenasserim Provinces have been incorporated with the British empi in the east, in consequence of the war with Burmah in 1824 For the purpose of weakening that insolent and ignorant power, A Arracan, and the Tenasserim Provinces were wrested from it.