o fine as represented: his answer was in truly Eastern
hyperbole--"Dip it in the Irrawaddy," said he, (that is, an enormous
river seven hundred miles long and in many parts several miles broad,)
"and the whole water will turn to blood."

I have said that the Burmahs are very superstitious: they have a great
variety of charms which they wear about their persons, but there is one
custom of theirs which is very singular. They polish rubies; that is,
without cutting them in _facettes_, but merely the stone, whatever its
primitive shape, is rubbed down on every side until it is perfectly
smooth. They then make an incision in the flesh, generally the arm or
leg, put in the ruby and allow the skin to heal over it, so that the
stone remains there. Soldiers and sailors in search of plunder will
find out any thing, and this practice of the Burmahs was soon
discovered; and after the assault and carrying of a stockade, you would
see the men passing their hands over the bodies, and immediately they
felt a rising in the limb, out with their knives and cut in for the
rubies. Indeed, the plunder was more considerable than might be
imagined, for every Burmah carried all his wealth about his person.

Another singular custom arising from their superstition prevails among
this people. The king has a corps denominated _Invulnerables_, whose
ranks are filled up in this manner:--when a criminal is condemned to
death for certain offences, such as robbery, he is permitted to
challenge as an _invulnerable_. This is proved by his standing at a
certain distance from several men who fire at him with ball. Should he
not be wounded or killed, he is pronounced an invulnerable and enrolled
in the corps. In every stockade we attacked, there were always one or
two of these men, and they really appeared to believe in their own
powers. They generally stood above the timbers of the stockade, dancing
and capering as the boats advanced, and continued their extravagance
amidst a shower of bullets, exposing their persons in a most undaunted
manner. There was one fellow who, dressed in a short red jacket, and
nothing else except the cloth round his loins, who was well known to our
men; they called him _Happy Jack_, from the capers which he used to cut,
and somehow or another it was his good fortune never to be hit, at
least, not that we know of, for taking stockade after stockade, at every
fresh attack there was Happy Jack to be seen capering and shout