146 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
soners at Ava during the war saw repeated ex¬ 
amples of this during their confinement, and even 
experienced it in their own persons. They had 
repeatedly paid fines to the principal gaoler in 
order to procure milder treatment; but as there 
seemed to be no end to his exactions, they deter¬ 
mined, at length, to resist any further demands. 
They were all in the same stocks, a long wooden 
frame connected with the roof of the prison at 
each extremity by ropes. One day, shortly after 
their refusal to make further payment, they found 
the stocks, with their lower limbs in them, gra¬ 
dually rising, until at length it left them forming 
an angle of about forty-five degrees with the 
ground, on which their heads and shoulders alone 
rested. After being suspended for an hour or two 
in this disagreeable predicament, nothing remained 
for them but to pay the old extortioner an addi¬ 
tional bribe, which was done through their friends 
or relatives. Like other semi-barbarous people, 
the Burmans have occasional recourse to the trial 
by ordeal. The accuser and accused are com¬ 
monly required, in such a case, to dip the point 
of the fore-finger of the right-hand into melted 
lead or tin. At the end of three days, the finger 
which had been thus immersed is punctured with 
a needle, when innocence is determined by blood 
flowing from the wound—guilt by the flow of an 
ichor or watery fluid ! A good deal will depend, 
no doubt, in such a case, upon the disposition of 
