the Portuguese used to call the Black King of Siam.  Against him the king of Pegu sent his eldest son and intended successor, who was slain in these wars, and was the occasion of the almost total destruction of the kingdom of Pegu, and caused the loss of many millions of lives.  The king of Pegu, who was of the race of the Bramas, was sore grieved for the loss of his son, and caused most of his chief Peguan nobles and military officers to be put to death on the occasion.  This caused much perturbation and confusion, so that his tributary kings, of whom there were twenty, revolted daily against him.  At length, encouraged by these defections, Rajah Api, or the Black King of Siam, went to war against the king of Pegu, and even besieged the capital city of Uncha, or Pegu, for two months, but was forced to raise the siege and return to Siam.

Not long after this, on account of a great pestilence and famine, the king of Pegu found himself under the necessity of surrendering himself and all his treasures to the king of Tangu, that he might not fall into the hands of the king of Arracan, who was coming against him with a prodigious army:  Yet the king of Arracan easily made himself master of the city and kingdom of Pegu, then almost depopulated by famine and pestilence.  The king of Arracan now proposed to go against Tangu; but the king of that country sent ambassadors to him at Arracan, offering to deliver up to him a certain portion of the treasures of Pegu, together with the White Elephant and the king of Pegu’s daughter, both of whom I saw at Arracan in 1608; even offering either to give up the king of Pegu or to put him to death.  This the king of Tangu afterwards did, by slaying him, with a pilon, or wooden pestel with which they stamp rice; for being of the race of Brama, it was not lawful to shed his blood.  In this manner was the mighty empire of Pegu brought to ruin, so that at this day there is no remembrance of it.[382] The king of Arracan gave charge of the town and fortress of Siriagh, [Sirian] upon the river of Pegu, to Philip de Brito de Nicote, to whom he gave the designation of Xenga, signifying the honest; which honour and confidence Xenga requited by taking his son a prisoner three or four years afterwards, and ransomed him for 1,100,000 taggans and ten galeas of rice.  Brito yet domineers in Sirian, and cares for nobody.

[Footnote 382:  This is to be understood of 1612, when Floris was there.  After many revolutions, the empire of Pegu was re-established by a tribe called the Birmas, and now subsists in great power and splendour, including Ava, Arracan, Pegu, and Siam.—­E.]