420 OF THE STATE PRISONERS 



duties upon that frontier of the kingdom. Here, 

 at the period of this interview with the King, were 

 confined five princes of the blood Royal, some of 

 whom had been prisoners for as many as thirty, or 

 thirty-four years. 



From personal inspection of their apartments, 

 an opportunity afforded to no other European 

 besides, I can state that the close and rigorous 

 confinement, said to have been imposed upon 

 these captives, is much exaggerated ; and, although 

 the separate sleeping apartments at night were 

 not more than seven feet in all their dimensions, 

 still they were only composed of sticks, such 

 as the common garden rods for raising peas in 

 England, and a strong man leaning hard against 

 them must have fallen out through the wall of 

 his cell. Only two of the royal prisoners wore 

 chains ; these were on one hand and leg of the 

 same side, and were long enough to admit of the 

 freest motion. A long-thatched wort bait, or meat- 

 house, contained their families ; for not only did^he 

 King remember his captive brethren on days of 

 festival, by sending them oxen, and honey-wine, 

 but they were allowed to marry, and their wives 

 lived with them in their confinement. I took a 

 ground plan of the whole establishment, and the 

 Wallasmah, who was too old to accompany me on 

 my survey, when I was in the only place that 

 looked like a dungeon at all, a vault about twenty 

 feet square, cut out of the summit of the hill 



