Pioneers and Founders

by Шарлотта Мэри Йондж

  As soon as the missionaries arrived, he sent for them and received them in an open court, where they were seated on a bamboo floor about ten feet from his chair. He took no notice of Judson, except as an interpreter, but interrogated Price as to his skill in surgery, sent for his medicines, looked at them and at his instrument, and was greatly amused with his galvanic battery; he then dismissed them with orders to choose a spot on which a house should be built for them, and to look up the diseased to try Price's skill upon.

  Moung Zah, the former minister, recognized Judson kindly, and after a time the King took notice of him: "You in black, what are you, a medical man too?"

  "Not a medical man, but a teacher of religion, your Majesty."

  After a few questions about his religion the King proceeded to ask whether any Burmese had embraced it.

  "Not here," diplomatically said Judson.

  "Are there any in Rangoon?"

  "There are a few."

  "Are they foreigners?"

  Mr. Judson says he trembled for the consequences of an answer, but the truth must be spoken at all risks, and he replied, "Some foreigners and some Burmese."

  The King showed no displeasure, but asked questions on religion, geography, and astronomy, as though his temper was quite changed. His brother, a fine young man of twenty-eight, who suffered from paralysis, became a patient of Dr. Price, and had much conversation with Judson, showing great eagerness for instruction. He assured the missionaries that under the present reign there was no danger to the native Christians, and after a successful operation for cataract, performed by Dr. Price, the missionaries were so much in favour that while Price remained at Ava and there married a native lady, Judson was desired only to go back to Rangoon to meet his wife on her return, and bring her to reside at Ava.

  Their good and tolerant friend, the Viceroy, was dead, and his successor was a severe and unjust man, so that the people had fled in numbers from the place, and few Christians remained except at Moung Shwaygnong's village. There was thus the less to leave, when in December 1823 Mrs. Judson safely arrived, and two fresh missionaries with her, to whom the flock at Rangoon could be left. There is a most happy letter written on the voyage up the Irrawaddy to Ava, when it seemed as though all the troubles and difficulties of four years had been smoothed away. The mission had been kindly welcomed at Ava, and established in the promised house, when the first of the English wars with Burmah broke out, on grounds on which it is needless to enter. It is enough to say that after many mutual offences, Sir Archibald Campbell, with a fleet and army, entered Rangoon, and occupied it without resistance, the Viceroy being absent at the time.

  The Court of Ava were exceedingly amazed at the insolence of the foreigners. An army supposed to be irresistible was sent off, dancing and singing, in boats down the river, and all the fear was lest the alarm should drive away the white strangers with the "cock-feather chief" before there was time to catch any for slaves. A lady sent a commission for four to manage the affairs of her household, as she heard they were trustworthy; a courtier, for six to row his boat.

  The capture of Rangoon was supposed by national pride to be wholly owing to the treachery of spies, and three English merchants were fixed upon as those spies and put under arrest. The King was advised likewise to secure the persons of the missionaries, but he answered, "They are quiet men; let them alone." Unfortunately, however, a receipt for some money paid to Adoniram Judson was found among the papers of one of the merchants, and this to the Burmese mind was proof of his complicity in the plot. Suddenly, an official, accompanied by a dozen men, one of whom had his face marked with spots, to denote his being an executioner, made his appearance demanding Mr. Judson. "You are called by the King," said the official, and at the same moment the executioner produced a cord, threw Mr. Judson on the floor, and tied his arms behind his back. His wife vainly offered money to have his arms unbound, and he was led away, the faithful Ing following at a distance to see what was done with him, while Mrs. Judson retired to her room and poured out her soul "to Him who for our sakes was bound and led away to execution," and great was her comfort even in that moment. She was immediately after summoned to be examined by a magistrate in the verandah, and after hastily destroying all journals and papers, went out to meet him. He took down her name and age, those of four little Burmese girls she had charge of, and of two Bengal servants; pronounced them all slaves to the King, and set a guard over them. Mrs. Judson fastened herself and her children into the inner room, while the guards threatened her savagely if she would not show herself, and even put her servants' feet in the stocks till she had obtained their release by promises of money.

  Moung Ing had ascertained that his master was in prison; and when, after the most dreadful night she had ever spent, she sent him again in the morning, with a piece of silver to obtain admittance, he brought word that both Judson and Price, with the three English merchants, were in the death-prison, each wearing three pairs of iron fetters and fastened to a long pole. Mrs. Judson immediately sent to the governor of the city with an entreaty to be allowed to visit him with a present. This procured her a favourable reception, and he promised to make the condition of the prisoners more comfortable, but told her that she must consult his head writer as to the means. This man, a brutal-looking fellow, extorted from her a huge bribe, and then promised to release the two teachers from the pole, and to put them into another building where she might send them food daily, and pillows and mats to sleep on. She obtained an order for an interview with her husband, whose looks were so wretched and ghastly that she lost no time in fulfilling these exorbitant demands.

  Her hope was in a petition to the Queen, but being under arrest herself, she could not go to the Queen in person, and had to approach her through her sister-in-law-a proud, haughty dame, who received her in the most cold, discouraging manner, but who undertook to present the petition. She then went to the prison again, but the head writer would not allow her to enter; and on her return home she found that all the property in the mission-house was to undergo a scrutiny; but this was humanely done, and was only inventoried, not seized-i.e. the King did not seize it, but the officials helped themselves to whatever took their fancy. The next day the Queen's answer was obtained-"He is not to be executed; let him remain where he is."

  The poor lady's heart fainted within her, but she thought of the widow and the unjust judge, and persevered day after day in applying to every member of the royal family or of Government to entreat for her husband's liberation. The King's mother, sisters, and brother were all interested in his favour, but none of them ventured to apply direct to the King lest they should offend the favourite Queen. All failed, but the hopes that from time to time were excited, kept up the spirits of the sufferers. During the long weary months while the missionaries continued in fetters, i.e. chained by the feet to a bar of bamboo, Mrs. Judson was often not allowed to visit them for ten days at a time, and then only by walking to the prison after dark, two miles, unattended. She could, however, communicate with her husband by means of the provisions she sent him daily. At first she used to write on the dough of a flat cake, which she afterwards baked and concealed in a bowl of rice, while he answered by writing on a tile, where the inscription disappeared when dry but was visible when wet; but latterly they found it most convenient to write on a roll of paper hidden in the long nose of a coffee-pot, in which tea was sent to the prisoners.

  Mrs. Judson delighted to send him little surprises, once a mince-pie, which Moung Ing carried with the utmost pride to his imprisoned master. Mrs. Judson found herself obliged to wear the native dress, though she was so much taller than the Burmese women that she could be hardly taken for one of them. It was a becoming dress; her hair was drawn into a knot on the forehead, with a cocoa-blossom, like a white plume, drooping from it; a saffron vest open in front to show a crimson tunic below; and a tight skirt of rich silk, sloping down behind, made her look to advantage, so that her husband liked to remember her as she stood at his pr
ison door. She never was allowed to come further.

  For twenty days she was absent, and then she came with a tiny, pale, wailing, blue-eyed baby on her breast. Poor Judson, clanking up to the door in his chains to welcome his little daughter, commemorated his feelings in some touching verses ending:-

  "And when in future years

  Thou know'st thy father's tongue,

  These lines will show thee how he felt,

  How o'er his babe he sung."

  Every defeat by the European forces added to the perils of captives. A favourite old general named Bundoolah had promised, when sent to command the army against Rangoon, that he would release all the white prisoners on his return as a conqueror; and when he was totally defeated, the wrath of the Burmese was so great that at this time the King himself seems to have scarcely acted at all. He was gentle, indolent and indifferent, more intelligent than those around him, scarcely a Buddhist in belief, and very kind-hearted: indeed Judson believed that it was his interposition alone that prevented the lives of the captives from being taken at once; but he was demoralized by self-indulgence, and allowed himself to be governed by his queen, the daughter of a superintendent of gaols; and through her, by her brother, who was cruel, rapacious and violent, and the chief author of all the sufferings inflicted on the prisoners. Among these were seven or eight British officers, and the King had commanded that a daily allowance of rice should be served to these, but scarcely half of it ever reached them; Mrs. Judson did her best to supply them as well as her husband, but their health gave way under their sufferings, and all died but one.

  At the end of seven months, it was reported that the English army was advancing into the interior; and in the passionate alarm thus excited, the English captives were all loaded with five pairs of fetters and thrown into the common prison among Burman thieves and robbers,-a hundred in a room without a window, and that in the hottest season of the year. Mrs. Judson again besought the governor to relieve them from this horrible condition, by at least allowing them to sit outside the door, and he actually shed tears at her distress, but he told her that he had been commanded to put them all to death privately, and that he was doing his best for them by massing them with the rest. The Queen's brother had really given this order, but the governor delayed the execution in case they should be required of him by the King, and they continued in this frightful state for a whole month, until Mr. Judson sickened with violent fever, and the governor permitted him to be removed into a little bamboo room, six feet long and four wide, where his wife was allowed to visit him and bring him food and medicine, she meantime living in a bamboo house in the governor's compound, where the thermometer rose daily to 106 degrees, but where she thought herself happy as she saw her husband begin to recover.

  One day, however, when the governor had sent for her and was kindly conversing with her, a servant came in and whispered to him that the white strangers had suddenly been taken away, no one knew whither. The governor pretended to be taken by surprise, but there could be no doubt that he had occupied Mrs. Judson to hinder her from witnessing the removal; and it was not till the evening that she learnt that the prisoners had been taken to Umerapoonah, whither she proceeded with her three months old baby and one servant. There she found that the prisoners had been sent on two hours before to a sort of penal settlement called Oung-pen-lay, whither she followed, to find her husband in a lamentable state. He had been dragged out of his little room, allowed no clothing but his shirt and trowsers, a rope had been tied round his waist, and he had been literally driven ten miles in the hottest part of the day. His feet were so lacerated that he was absolutely falling, when a servant of one of the merchants tore a piece from his turban, and this wrapped round his feet enabled him to proceed, but he could not stand for six weeks after; indeed the scars remained for life. In this state he lay chained to Dr. Price. The intention was to sacrifice them both, in order to obtain success for an intended expedition; but before this could be done, a different woongye, or prime minister, came in, and their condition was somewhat improved, for they only wore one bamboo, through two slits in which their feet were forced, and they were allowed to crawl into the enclosure. Meantime, a poor lion, once a great favourite, which was thought to be connected with the lions on the English colours, was placed in a bamboo cage in sight of the prisoners, and there starved to death, in hopes of thus abating the force of the enemy. When its carcase was removed, Mr. Judson, at his own earnest entreaty, was allowed the reversion of its cage, and there, to his great joy, Moung Ing brought him his MS. translation of part of the Burmese Bible, which he had kept in his pillow at Ava till it was torn away by the jailors on his removal. The faithful Ing, thinking only to secure a relic of his master, had picked up the pillow and secured the treasure.

  Solitude was the greatest boon to Judson, whose fastidious delicacy suffered greatly in the thronged prison, but his faithful Ann was suffering terribly. One of the little Burmese girls who lived with her had caught the small-pox, and was very ill: Mrs. Judson inoculated the other child and her own little Maria, but Maria's inoculation did not take effect, and she caught the disease, and had it very severely. Then Mrs. Judson herself fell ill of a fever, and remained for two months unable to visit her husband, both of them owing all their food to the exertions of their good Bengalee cook. Poor little Maria was nearly starved, no milk was to be had, and the only food she obtained was when the jailers were bribed to let her father carry her round the village to beg a little nourishment from the nursing mothers. Her moans at night rent the heart of her sick mother, and it is scarcely possible to imagine how either survived. By this time, the English troops were so far advancing that the King was reduced to negotiate, and, being in need of an interpreter, he sent an order for Mr. Judson's release; but as his wife was not named in it, she had great difficulty in effecting her departure, and half-way through the journey a guard came down and carried him off to Ava without her. Arriving next day, she found him in prison, but under orders to embark in a little boat and go at once to the camp at Maloun. She hastened to prepare all that was needful for his comfort, but all was stolen except a mattress, pillow, and one blanket. The boat had no awning, and was so crowded that there was no room to lie down for the three days and three nights of alternate scorching heat and heavy dew; there was no food but a bag of refuse-rice, and the banks on either side of the Irrawaddy were bordered with glittering white sand, which in sunlight emitted a metallic glare intolerable to the eyes, and heat like a burning furnace. The fever returned upon Judson, and, when he reached Maloun, he was almost helpless; but he found himself lodged in a small bamboo hut in the middle of the white sand, where he could not admit air by rolling up the matting without letting in the distressing glare, and where the heat reflected from the sand was like a furnace. He could not stir when the officers came to summon him to the presence of the Burmese general, and they thought it stubbornness, and threatened him; then they brought him papers and commanded him to translate them, while he writhed in torture and only longed that the fever in his brain would deprive him of his senses. This it must have done, for he had only a confused impression of feet around him, and of fancying that he was going to be burnt alive, until he found himself on a bed in a somewhat cooler room. As he lay there, papers were continually brought him to explain and translate, and he found that the greatest difficulty was in making the Burmese understand that a State paper could mean what it said, or that truth and honesty were possible. Sometimes, as he tried to explain the commonest principle: of good faith and fair dealing among Christian nations, his auditors would exclaim, "That is noble," "That is as it should be;" but then they would shake their heads and say, "The teacher dreams; he has a heavenly spirit, and so he thinks himself in the land of the dwellers in heaven."

  He remained here six weeks, suffering much at night from cold, for his only covering was a small rug and his well-worn blanket. Then, on the advance of the English, he was sent back to Ava, but was marched straight to the court-hou
se without being suffered to halt for a moment at his own abode, to discover whether his wife was there. He was placed in a shed, guarded all day, and left without food, till Moung Ing found him out in the evening, and replied to his questions, that the Mamma Judson and the child were well; yet there was something about his manner that was unsatisfactory, and Judson, thinking it over, became terribly uneasy, and in the morning, being sent for by the governor of the jail, obtained permission to go to his own house.

  At the door he saw a fat, half-naked Burmese woman with a child in her arms, so dark with dirt that it never occurred to him that it could be his own; and entering, he found, lying across the foot of the bed, his wife, ghastly white and emaciated, her hair all cut away, and her whole appearance that of a corpse. She woke as he knelt down by her in despair! She had been ill all this time with a horrible spotted fever. The day she had fallen ill, the Burmese woman had offered to take charge of little Maria, and the Bengalee cook had attended on her. Dr. Price was released from prison and had cut off her hair, bled, and blistered her, but she could hardly move when the tidings came of her husband being in the town, and she had sent Moung Ing to him. The husband and wife were at last together again, and Dr. Price was sent to conduct the treaty at the English camp.

  As soon as Sir Archibald Campbell heard of the sufferings of the Judsons, he demanded them as well as the English subjects; but the King was aware that they were not English, and would not let them go. This attempt at a treaty failed; but its failure, and the alarm consequent upon a report of the advance of the English, led to Mr. Judson's being sent off, almost by force, with two officials, to promise a ransom if Ava were spared. Sir Archibald Campbell undertook that the city should not be attacked, provided his terms were complied with before he reached it; and among these was the stipulation that not only English subjects, but all foreigners should have free choice whether to go or to stay. Some of the officials tried to persuade Mr. Judson to stay, declaring that he would become a great man, but he could not refuse the freedom offered him after such cruel sufferings, and he was wont to declare that the joy of finding himself floating down the Irrawaddy in a boat with his wife and baby, made up for their twenty-one months of peril and misery.