“The ‘father’ of this interesting family received me at the gate with a smile of welcome like the grin of a tiger, and with the most disgusting imprecations hurried me to a huge block of granite embedded in the centre of the yard. I was made to sit down and place my ankles on the block of stone while three pairs of fetters were struck on with a maul, a false blow of which would have maimed me forever. But they were too expert for this, and it was not a time to care for minor dangers. Thus shackled, I was told, as if in derision, to walk to the entrance of the prison-house not many yards distant; but as the shortness of the chains barely permitted me to advance the heel of one foot to the toe of the other, it was only by shuffling a few inches at a time that the task was accomplished. Practice, however, soon made me more expert.
“It is not easy to give a correct idea of the prison which was destined to be my dwelling place for the first year of my captivity. Although it was between four and five o’clock on a bright sunny afternoon, the rays of light only penetrated through the chinks and cracks of the walls sufficiently to disclose the utter wretchedness of all within. Some time elapsed before I could clearly distinguish the objects by which I was surrounded. As my eyes gradually adapted themselves to the dim light, I ascertained it to be a room about forty feet long by thirty feet wide, the floor and sides made of strong teak-wood planks, the former being raised two feet from the earth on posts, which, according to the usual style of Burmese architecture, ran through the body of the building, and supported the tiled roof as well as the rafters for the floor and the planking of the walls. The height of the walls from the floor was five or six feet, but the roof being a sloping one, the centre might be double that height. It had no window or aperture to admit light or air except a closely woven bamboo wicket used as a door, and this was always kept closed. Fortunately, the builders had not expended much labour on the walls, the planks of which here and there were not very closely united, affording through the chinks the only ventilation the apartment possessed, if we except a hole near the roof where, either by accident or design, nearly a foot in length of decayed plank had been torn off. This formed a safety-valve for the escape of foul air to a certain extent; and, but for this fortuitous circumstance, it is difficult to see how life could have been long sustained.