“The celebrated petroleum wells afford, as I ascertained at Ava, a revenue to the king or his officers. The wells are private property, and belong hereditarily to about thirty-two individuals. A duty of five parts in a hundred is levied on the petroleum as it comes from the wells, and the amount realized upon it is said to be twenty-five thousand ticals per annum. No less than twenty thousand of this goes to contractors, collectors, or public officers; and the share of the state, or five thousand, was assigned during our visits as a pension of one of the queens.” Truly, this does not look like rapacity on the part of the king! Who can tell what portion is legitimately the share of the officers of the Crown? The revenue of the Burman empire is a duty of ten per cent. upon all merchandise coming from abroad; of the produce of some of the mines in the Burman dominions; export duties; a family tax, and an excise on salt, fisheries, fruit-trees, rice, and, as before seen, on petroleum. Besides this, there is a supply of money continually coming in by the presents which the officers receive for the attainment of various favours. The latter, though of course wavering, forms a by no means inconsiderable portion of the royal income. The taxes are principally taken in kind, with the exception of the tax on families, which is usually demanded in specie. But even these form a very inconsiderable portion of the income of the Crown. Sangermano tells us very quaintly, “as he considers the property of his subjects as in reality belonging to himself, he therefore exacts from them anything he pleases; so that it may be said with truth, that the unfortunate Burmese labour in acquiring riches, not for themselves or their children, but merely to gratify the avarice of the emperor; as their possessions almost invariably find their way, sooner or later, into the royal treasury.”[57] We shall in the course of a few pages see in what manner this took place.