148 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
sacrilege, he saw seven persons put to death at 
once. They were tied to stakes on the banks of 
the Irawadi at low water, and left to be drowned 
by the returning tide, which did not do its work 
for four hours. The Barmans commonly suffer 
death with the intrepidity or indifference of other 
Asiatic people. One gentleman told me that he 
had seen a deserter eat a banana with his bowels 
out, after the executioner had performed more 
than half his task; and another, also an eye-wit¬ 
ness, stated that a woman condemned for murder 
to be thrown to a tiger, deliberately crept into the 
cage, made the savage a shiko, or obeisance, was 
killed by a single blow of the animal’s fore-foot, 
and immediately dragged by him into the recess 
of his den. It must however be observed, that 
the Burmese seldom condemn women to death. 
“ The sword,” they say, “ was not made for wo¬ 
man.” Gang robbery, desertion from the King’s 
service, sacrilege, that is to say, robbing temples, 
and sedition or treason, are considered the most 
heinous offences. The number of executions in 
the Myo-wunship of Rangoon, or Han-tha-wati, 
used to be from twenty-five to thirty a-year. 
From the extreme corruption of the Burmese of¬ 
ficers, however, there was hardly an offence which 
might not be expiated by those who could afford 
to pay a pecuniary penalty, except perhaps trea¬ 
son, and now and then sacrilege. Even when the 
culprit could not purchase entire immunity, money 
