"Cesar Fedrici’s travelled in India, Southeast Asia and the Middle East in the 1560s-1580s and his account has been immensely influential in the literature. One reason for this, is that it is not given to the hyperbole of the near-contemporary account of Mendez Pinto and because of its great attention to detail concerning the state, its administrators, and trade at Pegu.Unfortunately Fedrici, who spent a considerable amount of time in Pegu and to a lesser extent in Martaban, in the late 1560s, does not provide us with comparable information on local society, although he still provides some valuable information in this area." Edited for the SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research by Michael W. Charney.