Part 142

“On my return to the governor’s, I found a servant of Mr. Gouger, who happened to be near the prison when the foreigners were led out, and followed on to see the end, who informed me that the prisoners had been carried before the lamine-woon, at Amarapoora, and were to be sent the next day to a village he knew not how far distant. My distress was a little relieved by the intelligence that our friend was yet alive; but still I knew not what was to become of him. The next morning I obtained a pass from Government, and with my little Maria, who was then only three months old, Mary and Abby Hasseltine, two of the Burman children, and our Bengalee cook, who was the only one of the party that could afford me any assistance, I set off for Amarapoora. The day was dreadfully hot; but we obtained a covered boat, in which we were tolerably comfortable, till within two miles of the Government house. I then procured a cart; but the violent motion, together with the dreadful heat and dust, made me almost distracted. But what was my disappointment, on my arriving at the court-house, to find that the prisoners had been sent on two hours before, and that I must go in that uncomfortable mode four miles farther with little Maria in my arms, whom I held all the way from Ava. The cartman refused to go any further; and after waiting an hour in the burning sun, I procured another, and set off for that never-to-be-forgotten place, Oung-pen-la. I obtained a guide from the governor, and was conducted directly to the prison yard. But what a scene of wretchedness was presented to my view! The prison was an old, shattered building, without a roof; the fence was entirely destroyed; eight or ten Burmese were on the top of the building, trying to make something like a shelter with leaves; while under a little low projection outside of the prison sat the foreigners, chained together two and two, almost dead with suffering and fatigue. The first words of your brother were, ‘Why have you come? I hoped you would not follow, for you can not live here.’ It was now dark. I had no refreshment for the suffering prisoners, or for myself, as I had expected to procure all that was necessary at the market of Amarapoora, and I had no shelter for the night. I asked one of the jailers if I might put up a little bamboo house near the prison; he said, ‘No; it is not customary.’ I then begged he would procure me a shelter for the night, when on the morrow I could find some place to live in. He took me to his house, in which there were only two small rooms—one in which he and his family lived; the other, which was then half full of grain, he offered to me; and in that little filthy place I spent the next six months of wretchedness. I procured some half-boiled water, instead of my tea, and, worn out with fatigue, laid myself down on a mat spread over the paddy, and endeavored to obtain a little refreshment from sleep. The next morning your brother gave me the following account of the brutal treatment he had received on being taken out of prison.