The learned teacher, Moung Shwa-gnong, had gone into the interior of the country, and soon afterward died of the cholera. The only four whom Mr. Judson could muster after the war had swept over Rangoon were Moung Shwa-ba, who had remained at the mission-house; Moung Ing, who with such fidelity served Mrs. Judson through all her long, bitter experiences at Ava; and two faithful women, Mah-men-la and Mah-doke, who had been living in boats at Prome, the half-way place between Rangoon and Ava, and who instantly resolved to accompany the Judsons to Rangoon. These four faithful disciples were ready to follow their white teacher wherever he should think it best to establish a mission. It was out of the question to think of remaining at Rangoon. The English were only holding the place temporarily, until the Burmans should pay their war debt. Indeed, at the close of the year, the English army did vacate Rangoon, and the Burmans resumed possession of their chief seaport. Should the missionaries therefore remain in Rangoon, they would still be under the cruel sway of Burman despotism. In addition, the monarch at Ava was peculiarly exasperated with his subjects in the southern part of the empire, because they had put themselves under the benignant protection of the English; many of the peaceful inhabitants were no doubt to be massacred by the royal troops. A state of anarchy followed the war. A famine succeeded, in which beasts of prey became proportionally bold. Tigers began to infest the suburbs of Rangoon, and carry off cattle and human beings. A tiger was killed even in the streets of the city. All these circumstances impelled the missionaries to leave Rangoon. It was now no longer necessary for them to remain there in order to reach the native Burmans. One of the results of the war was that the British had wrested from the Burmans a large part of their sea-coast. The Tenasserim provinces had been ceded to the British. These embraced a strip of country along the sea, 500 miles long, and from 40 to 80 miles wide.[33] This country was peopled with Burmans, and the cruelty of the despot at Ava was sure to cause a large overflow of the population of Burmah proper into it. Here the Judsons might teach the new religion unmolested, under the protection of the British flag.