AAfARAPURA TO VzN2
27I
Rajshahi to buy mulberry silk cocoons and wound and raw silk. In
the busy season the sales on a single market-day occasionally amount to
a lakh, falling in the dull season to Rs. 8,ooo or Rs. Io,ooo. The rates
for cocoons for each breeding-season are fixed here for the whole District.
Amarapura Subdivision.-South-western subdivision of Mandalay
District, Upper Burma, containing the AMARAPURA and PATHEINGYI
townships.
Amarapura Township.-South-western township of Mandalay Dis-
trict, Upper Burma, lying between 21° 47' and 22° I' N. and 96° o'
and 96°0 5' E., with an area of 85 square miles. The population was
50,707 in 1891, and 43,884 in I90o, distributed in 227 villages and one
town, AMARAPURA (population, 9,103), the head-quarters. The density
is higher than in any other part of the District except Mandalay city.
It contains several Muhammadan villages, and silk-weaving is carried
on in all the hamlets in the south. The township is noted for its
mango groves along the bank of the Myitnge river. In the south and
west the land is low-lying and flooded during the rains, and the lagoons
left by the river are planted with mayin rice as they dry up. The
area cultivated in 1903-4 was 43 square miles, and the land revenue
and tlzathameda amounted to Rs. 1,40,000.
Amarapura Town.-Head-quarters of the subdivision and town-
ship of the same name in Mandalay District, Upper Burma, situated in
2 I 54' N. and 960 3' E., on high dry ground on a strip of land between
the Irrawaddy and the Taungthaman lake, a sheet of water fed from the
river by an inlet to the south of the town. The old city lies to the
north of the lake, and very little remains of the fortifications and
palaces. There are traces of the wall, a square about a mile each way,
and the moat still exists; but rough cultivation covers the sites of the
actual buildings. At each corner once stood a pagoda about Ioo feet
high. The city was founded in 1783 by Bodawpaya, in the place of
Sagaing on the opposite side of the river, though a town had existed on
the site long before its selection as the capital. Its name imports the
'city of the immortals.' It was at Amarapura that Bodawpaya received
the first British embassy under Captain Symes. The town was deserted
by Bagyidaw in 1822 in favour of Ava, but became the capital of his
brother Tharrawaddy in I837, and was finally abandoned by king
Mindon in 1857 on the foundation of Mandalay. The town abounds
in tamarind-trees, and fine mango groves are one of its main features.
Situated on a neck of comparatively high ground, Amarapura has been
connected with its surroundings by a number of brick causeways and
wooden bridges, the longest of which, known as the U Bein Tada,
stretching across the Taungthaman lake, is about I,ooo yards in length.
The pagodas in the neighbourhood are very numerous, the most
remarkable being the Patodawgyi pagoda, one of the largest and most
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