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The second instance, for the truth of which I would scarcely vouch, was reported to Malcom,[29] whence I quote it. “On a late occasion, for a very slight offence, he had forty of his highest officers laid on their faces in the public street, before the palace wall; kept for hours in a broiling sun, with a beam extended across their bodies.” This is scarcely credible, and I think Malcom’s informer must have been a Burmese Chartist, an Oriental Cuffey. However that traveller pithily observes, that he is “seldom allowed to know much of passing events, and particularly of the delinquencies of particular officers, who are ever ready to hush up accusations by a bribe to their immediate superior.”

Many circumstances lead me to suspect, however, that the king has little real power, and that the officers reap the benefits of the acts of enormity which he commits at their instigation, or which they commit under the shadow of his responsibility. It has often been the case in the world’s varied history, and why not here? Facts will show.