ar characters on paper can
hardly imagine the difficulty of tracing out these obscure scratches on
the dried palm-leaves. Another was that in writing, "their words are not
fairly divided like ours by breaks, and points, and capitals, but run
together in a long continuous line, a sentence or paragraph seeming like
one long word." Another difficulty was, that in their idiom, a great
variety of verbs must be used to express one action, either as performed
by persons of different rank, or as done under different circumstances.
Thus there are three or four ways to speak of eating rice, sleeping,
dying, &c. one of which is always used of the king, another of priests,
another of rulers, and another of common persons, and it would be an
insult to use a phrase lower than one is entitled to. Again, for our
term to _wash_, for instance, there are many words; one is used for to
_wash the face_, another, the hands, another, linen, another, dishes,
&c. They have in their language eleven vowels and thirty-three
consonants, but of these there are so many combinations, that about one
thousand characters must be used in printing. Printing, however, was
unknown to the Burmans until our missionaries introduced it.

As no progress at all could be made in their missionary labors until the
language was mastered, they applied themselves cheerfully and diligently
to its acquisition.

An interesting incident is related by Mrs. Judson under date of Dec.
11th, 1813, her first visit to the wife of a man in power. "To-day for
the first time I have visited the wife of the Viceroy. I was introduced
to her by a French lady who has frequently visited her. When we first
arrived at the government house, she was not up, consequently we had to
wait some time. But the inferior wives of the Viceroy diverted us much
by their curiosity, in minutely examining everything we had on, and by
trying on our gloves, bonnets, &c. At last her Highness made her
appearance, richly dressed in the Burman fashion, with a long silver
pipe in her mouth, smoking. At her appearance all the other wives took
their seats at a respectful distance, and sat in a crouching posture
without speaking. She received me very politely, took me by the hand,
seated me upon a mat and herself by me. One of the women brought her a
bunch of flowers, of which she took several and ornamented my cap. She
was very inquisitive whether I had a husband and children, whether I was
my husband's first wife,-