British acquisition of Burmah--Quarrels with the king in 1824--His reprisals--British subjects seized and sent to prison--Mr. Henry Gouger’s narrative--The “Death Prison”--Gigantic stocks--Filthiness of prison--Tortures inflicted--Barbarous trials--Horrible life--Rats and vermin--Smallpox--Tobacco a valuable disinfectant--Another “Black Hole”--Chained to a leper--Released by the advance of British troops--Penal code of Burmah--Ordeals and punishments--Treading to death by elephants--Dacoity the last form of resistance to British rule--Prison life--The Burmese gaol-bird--An outbreak. The acquisition and annexation of Burmah by Great Britain, first the lower province with three-fourths of the seaboard, and then the entire kingdom, were accomplished between 1824 and 1886, in a little more than half a century, that is to say. Until this took place the country was generally in a state of anarchy, the king was a bloodthirsty despot, and the state council was at his bidding no better than a band of Dacoits who plundered the people and murdered them wholesale. The ruling powers were always anxious to pick a quarrel with their powerful British neighbours, and were so unceasingly aggressive that they brought on a war in 1824, which ended in the capture of Rangoon and the occupation of Pegu and Martaban with the cession of the coast province of Aracan. The outbreak of hostilities led to cruel retaliation by the king of Burmah upon all Europeans who resided in the country, whether as missionaries or merchants engaged in trade. One of them, an Englishman, Mr. Henry Gouger, was arrested as a spy and arraigned before a court of justice with very little hope of escaping with his life. He was fortunately spared after suffering untold indignities and many positive tortures. Eventually he published his experiences, which remain to this day as a graphic record of the Burmese prisons as they then existed. He was first committed to the safe keeping of the king’s body guard, and confined with his feet in the stocks; then he was transferred to the “death prison,” having been barbarously robbed and deprived of his clothing. He was not entirely stripped, but was led away with his arms tied behind his back, bare-headed and bare-footed to the _Let-ma-yoon_, the “antechamber of the tomb.” Let me proceed now in the narrator’s own words:--