CHAPTER II.

Burman oppression of the Karens.-Singular prophecy.Arrival of the English.-Prophecies fulfilled concerning white foreigners.-Attachment to them.-Arrival of Teachers. The Karens obtain books.

THE remarkable traditions of Scripture doctrines and facts, which make the Karen nation a people prepared for the gospel in a manner above all other unevangelized nations, are well known, and will not be repeated here. But the following extracts from an unpublished address to the English Governor General, written by Sau Qua-la, a Karen assistant missionary, exhibit the local condition and anticipations of the Tavoy Karens so vividly, that, should they contain any thing irrelevant to the present subject, it will be overlooked, it is believed, from the consideration that every sentence is the unsuggested production of a Karen, who, when Ko Thah-byu entered the jungles, was wild as "the untaught Indian."

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Through the goodness of God, my nation, sons of the forest, and children of poverty, ought to praise thy nation, the white foreigners, exceedingly;

and we ought to obey your orders, for the Karens, the sons of the eastern forest, have neither head nor ear. They are poor, and scattered every where ; are divided in every direction; at the sources of the waters, and in the glens above them. When they fall among the Siamese, the Siamese make them slaves. When they fall among the Burmans, the Burmans make them slaves. So they live on one stream beyond another, and cannot see each other. They have had other things to do rather than visit. The Burmans made them drag boats, cut ratans, collect dammer, seek bees' wax, gather cardamums, strip bark for cordage, clear away cities, pull logs, and weave large mats. Besides this, they demanded of them presents of yams, the bulbo-tubers of arum, ginger, capsicum, flesh, elephants' tusks, rhinoceros' horns, and all the various kinds of vegetables that are eaten by the Burmans. The men being employed thus, the women had to labor at home. Sometimes the men were not at home four or five days in two or three months. Further, the young females had to secrete themselves, and affect rudeness, and blacken their faces; for if they did not, the Burman officers would drag them away and make them prostitutes. If any one was reputed handsome, and it came to the ears of the Burman rulers, she was taken away immediately; so that the young females dared not appear openly. Sometimes when a Burman asked, 'Is she a maiden?'

the Karens would reply falsely, 'No, she has a husband.' The married women, also, that were handsome, had to conceal themselves. The men were compelled by the Burman rulers to guard forts, to act as guides, to kidnap Siamese, and to go from one place to another, till many dropped down dead in the midst of the jungle. Notwithstanding they did all this, they had their arms twisted behind them, were beaten with stripes, boxed with the fist, and pounded with the elbow, days without end.

"In the midst of these sufferings, they remembered the ancient sayings of the Elders, and prayed beneath the bushes, though the rains poured upon them, or the musquetoes, the gnats, the leeches, or the horseflies bit them. The Elders said, 'Children and grandchildren, as to the Karen nation, their God will yet save them.' Hence, in their deep affliction, they prayed, 'If God will save us, let him save speedily. We can endure these sufferings no longer. Alas! where is God?'

"Sometimes the Burmans would kidnap the Karens in Siam and carry them up to Ava, to the presence of the king; and thus separated from father or mother, husband or wife, child or grandchild, they yearned for each other, and many sickened and died on the way, before reaching the monarch's feet. Sometimes the Siamese kidnapped the Karens in Burmah, and subjected them to like treatment. The Karens in Siam knew that those whom

the Siamese brought from Burmah were their relatives, and their tears flowed when they saw them; yet they dared not tell the Siamese, or supplicate for them. So those in Burmah, when they saw the Burmans leading away the Karens they had kidnapped in Siam, knew they were their cousins; yet they dared not speak or entreat for them; for if they said they were their relations, or begged for them, death was the immediate consequence. Moreover the Karens dared not dwell near the cities; for the Burmans took away all their rice and paddy, and every thing they had, and carried off their women by force. Hence they went far off, and dwelt on the streamlets and in the gorges of the mountains. After all, the rulers sometimes took their paddy; and in a state of starvation they would eat at random the roots and leaves of the jungle, and thus great numbers died. Sometimes the rulers assembled them together near the city, where, having nothing to eat, great numbers died of sickness and starvation. Sometimes they would have to carry rice for soldiers under march, and being unable to cultivate their fields, great numbers died of hunger from this cause. Then, those whom the rulers called, if unable to go, either from sickness in their families, or in their own persons, had to give money to the officers that came, and money for the rulers that sent them; and if they had no money, they were compelled to borrow of the Burmans, and thus became their slaves.

"Furthermore, the Karens were not permitted to go into the presence of the rulers. They were only allowed to hold a little communication with the Burman that was set over them. At one time, in the days of Diwoon, when the Karens were fast dying off with starvation, and were so employed that they could not cultivate the land, my uncle, who is a chief, determined to go and ask the governor to give the Karens liberty to cultivate the land and raise provisions to a small extent. So he went in to Diwoon; but he was thrown into prison immediately. His brethren had no rice to bring him, and they could feed him there only with the stems of wild plantain trees, the male blossoms with their spathes, and the young shoots of bamboos.

"Great Ruler, the ancestors of the Karens charged their posterity thus; Children and grandchildren, if the thing come by land, weep; if by water, laugh. It will not come in our days, but it will in yours. If it come first by water, you will be able to take breath; but if first by land, you will not find a spot to dwell in.' Hence, when the Karens were in the midst of their intense sufferings, they longed for those that were to come by water, to come first. Again, the Elders said, 'When the Karens have cleared the Hornbill city* three times, happi

*The site of an old city hear Tavoy, which the Karens were called in to clear occasionally, when the trees grew up over it.