Judson, Adoniram, 1788-1850; Missionaries -- Burma -- Biography; Missionaries -- United States -- Biography
“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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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