llage to
beg a little nourishment from the nursing mothers. Her moans at night
rent the heart of her sick mother, and it is scarcely possible to imagine
how either survived. By this time, the English troops were so far
advancing that the King was reduced to negotiate, and, being in need of
an interpreter, he sent an order for Mr. Judson's release; but as his
wife was not named in it, she had great difficulty in effecting her
departure, and half-way through the journey a guard came down and carried
him off to Ava without her. Arriving next day, she found him in prison,
but under orders to embark in a little boat and go at once to the camp at
Maloun. She hastened to prepare all that was needful for his comfort,
but all was stolen except a mattress, pillow, and one blanket. The boat
had no awning, and was so crowded that there was no room to lie down for
the three days and three nights of alternate scorching heat and heavy
dew; there was no food but a bag of refuse-rice, and the banks on either
side of the Irrawaddy were bordered with glittering white sand, which in
sunlight emitted a metallic glare intolerable to the eyes, and heat like
a burning furnace. The fever returned upon Judson, and, when he reached
Maloun, he was almost helpless; but he found himself lodged in a small
bamboo hut in the middle of the white sand, where he could not admit air
by rolling up the matting without letting in the distressing glare, and
where the heat reflected from the sand was like a furnace. He could not
stir when the officers came to summon him to the presence of the Burmese
general, and they thought it stubbornness, and threatened him; then they
brought him papers and commanded him to translate them, while he writhed
in torture and only longed that the fever in his brain would deprive him
of his senses. This it must have done, for he had only a confused
impression of feet around him, and of fancying that he was going to be
burnt alive, until he found himself on a bed in a somewhat cooler room.
As he lay there, papers were continually brought him to explain and
translate, and he found that the greatest difficulty was in making the
Burmese understand that a State paper could mean what it said, or that
truth and honesty were possible. Sometimes, as he tried to explain the
commonest principle: of good faith and fair dealing among Christian
nations, his auditors would exclaim, "That is noble," "That is as it
should be;" but then the