into the soul. To have the limbs dislocated, to
be "thrawed" with ropes, and beaten till the
whole body was one mass of broken bones and
bleeding flesh, to be struck down at night and
assassinated within the very hearing of the rest,
to be chained foot to foot with a leper, and
thrust into the closest companionship with
wretches suffering from small-pox, were among
Mr. Gouger's experiences of Burmese justice as
shown to himself or to others; but beyond the
necessary agonies of their position—the chains,
the bamboo-threading, the sickening dirt and
want of fresh air, the contamination of body and
soul from the hideous companionship into which
they were thrust—neither the British merchant
nor his compatriots and co-religionists were
specially tortured or reserved for any of the more
brutal punishments. In fact, they were somewhat
protected by the old governor, whose heart
had been touched by the loving zeal of Mrs.
Judson, happily not imprisoned, and who had so
much of our common human nature in him as to
allow himself to be moved by the unflagging
energy and tender devotion of the desolate
Christian wife. Owing to this secret protection
they were sometimes allowed to be removed to
a separate and better prison, but only to be
brought back again, after a few days' grace, and
again consigned to the old den of filth and
iniquity; and sometimes they were put into small,
clean, separate cells, which were elysium
compared to the horrors of the inner room. Here,
in these cells, too, Mr. Gouger was attended by
the pretty daughter of one of the Ring-cheeked,
and the woman's wit and tenderness contrived
many little ameliorations during the time this
better manner of confinement lasted. She
brought him water to cleanse himself with, and
sold the rats which he hunted successfully
enough; and she did all her woman's best to
cheer him, for she took a liking for him, and
was his Picciola in that terrible place. It was
while enjoying the quiet and cleanliness of these
cells that Gouger witnessed through the chinks
one of the foul assassinations common to the
place, when he saw a youth, whose feet were in
the stocks while his head was lying on the floor,
literally stamped and pounded to death by one
of the guards.

Mr. Gouger now ran a great chance of death
by starvation. His servants all forsook him,
save his Mohammedan bahur, who still
continued to supply him according to his best
power. But for him, the poor fellow would
have starved. As it was, his sufferings brought
him into a serious illness, from which he
recovered as by a miracle, though it left him with
a brain a little shaken and confused, and with
scarcely a man's command over his nerves.

All this while the war between the two
countries was steadily progressing—the English
arms victorious—which did not tend to make
the authorities more lenient towards those of
the foeman's blood whom they held in irons in
the Let-ma-yoon. Their severities were
increased. From three their irons were raised to
five pairs each; they were taken from their
separate cells and thrust back into all the
horrors of the inner prison; and every night they
heard a voice cry hoarsely, "Are the white men
safe? Keep them tight." And tighter and
tighter they were in fact kept, as the British
cannon boomed more fiercely across the water
of the Irrawuddi, and the British bayonet
gleamed nearer to the palace. The angry pride
of the Burmese could ill bear their disasters,
and it was perhaps the most wonderful thing of
all that they did not kill the white prisoners
outright, in revenge for their disasters brought
on them by men of their blood and faith.

One morning, on the second of May, nearly a
year since they were first imprisoned, the white
men, now eight in number, once more found
themselves grouped about the well-known granite
block. The spotted men stood round them; and
one by one their fetters were knocked off. They
were then tied in couples by the waist, one at
each end of the rope, and a Pah-quet or Ringed-
cheek with a spear, holding the rein, drove them
off through the town. They were quite uncertain
of their fate, and made sure that they were
being driven to death; and, indeed, to terrify
them, their drivers goaded them a few hundred
yards towards the place of execution, then
suddenly turned off upon the road leading to
Amerapoorah. The agonies of that journey were almost
unspeakable. The fiery tropical sun flashed down
on their undefended heads, and their naked feet
were soon one mass of bleeding wounds, for it
was like walking over red-hot iron to walk over
that arid plain of burning sand and gravel,
made worse to feet so long benumbed by irons
and want of exercise. One of the party, a
Greek—the leper to whom Gouger had been
coupled in the Let-ma-yoon—soon fell down
powerless: and though the Pah-quets beat and
goaded him with their spears, they could not
make him move. " It was of no use to beat
and goad a dying man;" and the last that Mr.
Gouger saw of him was his dying hands held up
in vain beseeching—the Ringed-cheeks standing
over him, striking him with their spears, while
they dragged him over the sands. Dr. Judson
was the next to suffer; but he was saved from
the fate of the poor leper by a fortunate accident.
One of Gouger's old servants, hearing of
the transit, came running to see his master once
more, and seeing the missionary's anguish, tore
his turban into bandages and bound up his feet.
But for this timely aid, there would have been
a second murder on that terrible day of agony.
When they got to Amerapoorah, the Ringed-
men left them, giving them into the care of
other jailers, who, though hard enough, were
not so wholly brutalised and demoniacal as the
last. The rest of the journey was made in a
cart, and at three o'clock the next day they
reached their new prison—a strange dilapidated
old place, at a country village called Oung-ben-lai.

At first they thought they were to be burnt
alive, because of the stacks of fagots heaped
up within the wooden walls; but this was a
false alarm, and soon they found their lives