In Pegu there are eight brokers called tareghe, which are bound to sell your goods at the prices they are worth, receiving as their fee two in the hundred, for which they are bound to make good the price, because you sell your goods on their word.  If the broker do not pay you on the day appointed, you may take him home to your house and keep him there, which is a great shame for him.  And, if he do not now pay you immediately, you may take his wife, children, and slaves, and bind them at your door in the sun; for such is the law of the country.  Their current money is of brass, which they call ganza, with which you may buy gold, silver, rubies, musk, and all other things.  Gold and silver is reckoned merchandise, and is worth sometimes more and sometimes less, like all other wares, according to the supply and demand.  The ganza or brass money goes by weight, which they call a biza; and commonly this biza is worth, in our way of reckoning, about half a crown or somewhat less.  The merchandises in Pegu are, gold, silver, rubies, sapphires, spinels, musk, benzoin, frankincense, long pepper, tin, lead, copper, lacca, of which hard sealing-wax is made, rice, wine made of rice, [aruck,] and some sugar.  The elephants eat sugar canes in great quantities, or otherwise they might make abundance of sugar.

They consume many canes likewise[425], in making their varellas or idol temples, of which there are a prodigious multitude, both large and small.  These are made round like a sugar loaf, some being as high as a church, and very broad beneath, some being a quarter of a mile in compass.  Within these are all of earth, faced round with stone.  In these varellas they consume a vast quantity of gold, as they are all gilded aloft, and some from top to bottom; and they must be newly gilded every ten or twelve years, because the rain washes off the gold, as they all stand exposed to the weather.  Were it not for the prodigious quantities of gold consumed in this manner, it would be very plentiful and cheap in Pegu.  About two days journey from Pegu there is a varella or pagoda called dogonne, of wonderful bigness, gilded all over from top to bottom, to which the inhabitants of Pegu go in pilgrimage; and near it is a house where their talapoins or priests preach to the people.  This house is fifty five paces long, and hath three pawnes or covered walks in it, the roof being supported by forty great gilded pillars, which stand between the walks.  It is open on all sides, having a vast number of small gilded pillars, and the whole is gilded both within and without.  Round about this there are many fair houses for the pilgrims to dwell in, and many goodly houses in which the talapoins preach, which are all full of idols or images, both male and female, all gilded with gold.  This, in my opinion, is the fairest place in the world.  It stands very high, having four roads leading to it, all planted on each side with fruit-trees, so that the people walk in the shade in all these avenues, which are each above two miles long.  When the grand festival of this varella approaches, one can hardly pass any way, on account of the great throngs of people, both by land and water, as they flock from all parts of the kingdom of Pegu to be present at the festival.