We hardly know how we shall bear the hot season which is just commencing, for our house is built of boards, and before night is heated like an oven.  Nothing but brick is a shelter from the heat at Ava, where the thermometer even in the shade frequently rises to 108 degrees.  We have worship every evening in Burman, when a number of the natives assemble, and every Sabbath Mr. Judson preaches the other side of the river in Dr. Price’s house.  We feel it an inestimable privilege that amid all our discouragements we have the language, and are able constantly to communicate truths which can save the soul.”

She then mentions that she has commenced a female school with three little girls, two of them given her by their parents, fine children, who improve very rapidly, and that she has a prospect of more pupils.  They did not immediately visit the palace, as the royal family were absent on a visit at Amarapoora, their old capital, where they were to remain until the new palace in Ava should be finished.  She found her old friend the viceroy’s wife now degraded by the death of her husband to a low rank, but a sensible woman, and more capable, Mrs. J. thought, of receiving religious truth than when in public life.  She adds that in consequence of war with the Bengal government, foreigners are not in as much esteem at court as formerly—­even Americans shared the same disfavor as Englishmen, for being similar in features, dress, language and religion, it is not surprising that the Burmans should have confounded them as subjects of one government.  From the circumstance of money being remitted to them through English residents in Ava, they were even suspected of being paid spies of the East India Company—­but this was at a somewhat later period.

* * * * *

The capital of Burmah is not fixed, but changes with the caprice of the monarch, for wherever he fixes his imperial residence, there, for the time, is the capital.  Ava, the former capital, having been forsaken during the reign of the old king for Amarapoora, was again to be the royal residence, and for this purpose a magnificent palace had been there erected, of which the emperor was now to take possession.  On these occasions, all the gorgeousness of oriental magnificence has its full display.  Such a scene the missionaires witnessed soon after their arrival at Ava.  Mrs. Judson gives an animated description of that splendid day, when majesty with all its attendant glory entered the gates of the golden city, and amid the acclamations of millions, took possession of the palace.  The numerous horses, the immense variety of vehicles, the vast number and size of richly caparisoned elephants, the myriads of people in their gala dresses, the highest officers in the kingdom drawn from the most distant as well as the nearer provinces to grace the occasion, each in his robes of state, the magnificent white elephant, caparisoned with silk and velvet, and blazing with jewels, the king and queen, in simple majesty, alone unadorned amid the gaudy throng, surpassed any pageant ever exhibited in the western world.  Alas! this pomp and pride were soon to receive a disastrous humiliation.