Understanding that the late seizure of their goods had been done by the sole authority of the governor of Martaban, without authority from the king of Pegu, they were sensible of the folly of their proceedings in setting the town on fire; yet next morning they began to discharge their cannon against the town, and continued their cannonade for four days, yet all in vain, as their balls were intercepted by the top of a small hill or rising ground which intervened, and did no harm to the city.  At this time the governor arrested the twenty-one Portuguese who were in the city, and sent them to a place four miles up the country, where they were detained till such time as the other Portuguese departed with their ships, after which they were allowed to go where they pleased, having no farther harm done them.  During all these turmoils I remained quietly in my house, under the protection of a strong guard appointed by the governor, to prevent any one from doing harm to me or my goods.  In this manner he effectually performed the promise he had made me in the king’s name; but he would on no account permit me to depart till the king returned from Siam to Pegu, which was greatly to my hindrance, as I remained twenty-one months under sequestration, during all which time I could neither buy nor sell any kind of goods whatever.  Those commodities which I had brought with me were pepper, sandal wood, and porcelain of China.  At length, when the king came back to Pegu, I made my supplication to him, and had liberty to go when and where I pleased.  Accordingly, I immediately departed from Martaban for Pegu, the capital city of the kingdom of that name, being a voyage by sea of three or four days.  We may likewise go by land between these two places, but it is much better and cheaper for anyone that has goods to transport, as I had, to go by sea.

In this short voyage we meet with the Macareo, or bore of the sea, which is one of the most marvellous of the works of nature, and one of these hardest to be believed if not seen.  This consists in the prodigious increase and diminution of the water of the sea all at one push or instant, and the horrible noise and earthquake which this Macareo produces when it makes its approach.  We went from Martaban in barks like our pilot boats, taking the flood tide along with us, and they went with the most astonishing rapidity, as swift as an arrow from a bow as long as the flow lasts.  Whenever the water is at the highest, these barks are carried out of the mid-channel to one or other bank of the river, where they anchor out of the way of the stream of the ebb, remaining dry at low water; and when the ebb is completely run out, then are the barks left on high above the water in the mid-channel, as far as the top of a house is from the foundation.  The reason of thus anchoring so far from the mid-stream or channel is, that when the first of the flood, Macareo or bore, comes in, any ship or vessel riding in the fair way or mid-channel