[28]. Gouger’s “Narrative of Imprisonment in Burmah.”
[29]. Mr. Gouger, a fellow-prisoner with Mr. Judson, thus describes this pathetic meeting: “It so happened, that at the moment of their interview outside the wicket-door, I had to hobble to the spot to receive my daily bundle of provisions, and the heart-rending scene which I there beheld was one that it is impossible to forget. Poor Judson was fastidiously neat and cleanly in his person and apparel, just the man to depict the metamorphosis he had undergone in these two wretched days in its strongest contrast. When Mrs. Judson had parted from him he was in the enjoyment of these personal comforts, whereas now none but an artist could describe his appearance. Two nights of restless torture of body and anxiety of mind had imparted to his countenance a haggard and death-like expression, while it would be hardly decent to advert in more than general terms to his begrimed and impure exterior. No wonder his wretched wife, shocked at the change, hid her face in her hands, overwhelmed with grief, hardly daring to trust herself to look upon him. Perhaps the part I myself sustained in the picture may have helped to rivet it on my memory, for though more than thirty-five years have since passed away, it reverts to me with all the freshness of a scene of yesterday.”
[30]. Maria Elizabeth Butterworth Judson, who was born in Ava, January 26, 1825.
[31]. The miseries of the first night in the jail at Oung-pen-la are thus described by Mr. Gouger: “When it became dark we were motioned inside and submitted our feet to the stocks as expected. We had gone to bed (I can not restrain a smile while I write the word, the bare plank being our resting-place) with stomachs uncomfortably light, and with minds anything but placid. The jail-guard was stationed below us in a little apartment resembling a veranda, formed by a continuation of the roof, on a plan which the builders called a ‘lean to.’ As all became still we began to compose our thoughts as well as we could, in the hope of obtaining a little sleep, when, to our astonishment, we felt the stocks gradually and slowly moving upward, as if by magic, for there was no one in the room to put them in motion. At first we were so taken by surprise, that we did not know what to make of it. Was it going up to the roof? Was it some new species of torture? Its movement was majestically slow, and gave us a little time to think before it reached the height at which it rested, when a very short time discovered the trick. It was certainly very creditable to the ingenuity of the rogues, and was, no doubt, looked upon by them as a prodigy of mechanical contrivance—as I could hear them outside enjoying the fun. There was a kind of crank outside which had escaped our notice, so contrived as to raise or depress the stocks, at the will of the operator. When he had worked them to a sufficient height, he fixed them, and left us depending, in the fashion of a bamboo at the Let-ma-yoon. And now began, what I before hinted at, the attack of mosquitoes, which swarmed in from the stagnant water of the rice-field, settling unresisted on our bare feet. We could not reach to drive them off, and a rich repast they no doubt enjoyed on our flayed soles. At last it became insupportable and we lustily bawled out for pity from our guard below. I must do them the credit to believe they knew not the extent of the torture they were inflicting, as before midnight they mitigated it by lowering the stocks, when we could hold the enemy at bay.”
[32]. See [Appendix E].
CHAPTER VIII.
LIFE IN AMHERST.
1826-1827.
The treaty of peace was signed by the British and Burmese Commissioners on the 24th of February, 1826. On the sixth of the following month, Mr. and Mrs. Judson, with the infant Maria, left the English army encamped at Yan-ta-bo. They sailed down the Irrawaddy in a British gun-boat, and arrived at Rangoon March 21, 1826. Having at last emerged from the long nightmare of Oriental imprisonment, Mr. Judson turned to his life-work with undiminished ardor. The English desired to retain his valuable services as interpreter, and offered him a salary equivalent to three thousand dollars. But the offer was declined. Like the late Professor Agassiz, he had “no time to make money.” He writes:
“I feel a strong desire henceforth to know nothing among this people but Jesus Christ and Him crucified; and under an abiding sense of the comparative worthlessness of all worldly things, to avoid every secular occupation, and all literary and scientific pursuits, and devote the remainder of my days to the simple declaration of the all-precious truths of the Gospel of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Mrs. Judson had rapidly recovered, and was now in perfect health.
“Even little Maria,” he writes, “who came into the world a few months after my imprisonment, to aggravate her parents’ woes, and who has been, from very instinct, it would seem, a poor, sad, crying thing, begins to brighten up her little face, and be somewhat sensible of our happy deliverance.”