After they had been in Rangoon about a year and a half, Mrs. Judson’s health began to break down under the effects of the climate. They had no physician to consult, and her symptoms proving dangerous, she was obliged to sail to Madras to secure both medical advice and the recuperation of a sea voyage. She set sail on January 25, 1815, and after an absence of nearly three months, returned with her health much improved. This first experience of long separation was very painful. Mr. Judson writes: “There is not an individual in the country that I can pray with, and not a single soul with whom I can have the least religious communion. I keep myself as busy as possible all day long, from sunrise till late in the evening, in reading Burman, and conversing with the natives. I have been here a year and a half, and so extremely difficult is the language—perhaps the most difficult to a foreigner of any on the face of the earth next to the Chinese—that I find myself very inadequate to communicate divine truth intelligibly. I have, in some instances, been so happy as to secure the attention, and in some degree to interest the feelings, of those who heard me; but I am not acquainted with a single instance in which any permanent impression has been produced. No Burman has, I believe, ever felt the grace of God; and what can a solitary, feeble individual or two expect to be the means of effecting in such a land as this, amid the triumphs of Satan, the darkness of death? The Lord is all-powerful, wise, and good; and this consideration alone always affords me unfailing consolation and support.” In a letter to her parents, sisters, and brother, Mrs. Judson gave the following description of the voyage to Madras and her return to Rangoon: