The situation of the prisoners was now horrible in the extreme.  There were more than one hundred of them shut up in one room, with no air but what came through cracks in the boards, and this in the hot season.  Mrs. Judson was sometimes permitted to spend five minutes at the door, but the sight was almost too horrible to be borne.  By incessant intreaties, she obtained permission for them to eat their food outside, but even this was soon forbidden.  After a month passed in this way, Mr. Judson was seized with fever, and nothing but death was before him unless he could have more air.  Mrs. Judson at length succeeded in putting up another bamboo hut in the prison enclosure, and by wearing out the governor with her entreaties, she got her husband removed into it, and though too low for them to stand upright, it seemed to them a palace in comparison with the prison.

Disastrous news of the war continued to arrive, and at length the death of Bandoola seemed to be the climax of misfortune.  Who could be found to take his place?  A government officer, who had for some time been in disgrace with the king, now came forward with a proposal to conquer the English and put an end to the war, provided an army was raised on a new plan.  His offers were accepted, and he was clothed with full powers.  He was a man of talent and enterprise, and a violent enemy to foreigners.  The missionaries feared everything from his malignancy; and their fears were but too well founded.

They had been in their comfortable hut but a few days, when Mrs. J. was suddenly summoned before the governor, and detained by trifling pretexts for some time, in order—­as she afterwards found—­to spare her the dreadful scene that was enacted at the prison in her absence.  On leaving him she met a servant running to tell her that all the white prisoners were carried away he knew not whither.  She ran from street to street inquiring for them, until at length she was informed they were carried to Amarapoora.  She hastened to the governor, who professed his ignorance, but promised to send off a man to inquire their fate; and said significantly, “You can do nothing more for your husband; take care of yourself.”  She returned to her room, and sank down almost in despair.  This was the most insupportable day she had passed.  She resolved to go to Amarapoora; packed up some valuables in trunks to leave with the governor; and took leave of Ava, as she supposed, forever.  She obtained a pass for herself and infant, her two Burman girls and cook, and got on board a boat, which conveyed them within two miles of Amarapoora.  There she procured a cart, but the heat and dust, with the fatigue of carrying her infant, almost deprived her of reason.  But on reaching the court-house, her distress was further aggravated, by finding that she must go four miles farther to a place called Oung-pen-la.  There in an old shattered building, without a roof, under the burning sun, sat the poor prisoners, chained two and two, and almost in a dying condition.  She prevailed on the jailer to give her a shelter in a wretched little room half filled with grain, and in that filthy place, without bed, chair, table, or any other comfort, she spent the next six months of wretchedness.