Here he remained three days, when the
English advancing upon the capital, the order was given for the removal of
the prisoners. They were hurried away without warning, and Mrs. Judson was
left in a state bordering on distraction. She soon found, on inquiry, the
direction which the prisoners had taken. With a single servant and two
Burman children, she started, with her babe, three months old, in her arms,
to find her companions in suffering. She overtook them at Oung-pen-la, and
found their condition to be wretched beyond description. Their journey was
over a rough, burning road, and, chained two by two, they were whipped
along like cattle bound to the place of slaughter. Their backs were
blistered by the sun, and their feet scorched by the ground, until every
step they took drew forth a groan of anguish, which their drivers answered
with yells of delight. One poor creature fell in the pathway, and was
dragged along until he expired.
To add to Mrs. Judson's distress, her assistant was taken with the small
pox the morning after she arrived at Oung-pen-la; and soon her daughter
Maria was reduced to the point of death by the same disease, and she
herself was afflicted with the malady in a modified form.
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