Editor?s note: This article by Francis Hamilton, also known as Francis Buchanan, first appeared in The Edinburgh Journal of Science (vol. 3, April-October, 1825, pp. 32-44). Despite its relatively late dating, Hamilton?s understanding of the area and the people were not substantially different from those found in the his earlier diaries during his travels in the area in 1798. M.W. C. ... "...The river called Naaf by Europeans, which enters the sea in about 20? 50? north, for a short way forms the boundary between Ava and Bengal; and across it is the only communication known between the kingdom of Arakan subject to Ava and Chatigang subject to Britain. North from the forks of this river, so far as I could learn in 1798, there was no district boundary; but there extends north, along the whole of the Chatigang district, a mountainous frontier occupied by several rude tribes. Through this region flow many rivers; some into the sea, either through Chatigang or Arakan, and some into the Erawadi; and the high land at the sources of such of these rivers as run through the district of Chatigang was commonly supposed to be the actual boundary. The rude tribes indeed, which occupy the hilly countries on both sides of the central eight, claim independence, and support it, so far as their slender means will admit..."