opened upon them, but the
heavy fire from the men-of-war was not long in silencing them; and
then a number of boats full of troops had landed, and stormed the
stockade, and driven out the Burmese. The land column had been
unable to take guns with them, owing to the impossibility of
dragging them along the rain-sodden paths; and the Burmese chiefs,
confident in the strength of their principal post--which was
defended by three lines of strong stockades, one above another--and
in their immensely superior force, treated with absolute contempt
the advance of the little British column--of which they were
informed, as soon as it started, by their scouts thickly scattered
through the woods.

The general, Soomba Wongee, was just sitting down to dinner when he
was told that the column had nearly reached the first stockade. He
directed his chiefs to proceed to their posts and "drive the
audacious strangers away," and continued his meal until the heavy
and rapid musketry of the assailants convinced him that the matter
was more serious than he had expected. As a rule, the Burmese
generals do not take any active part in their battles; but Soomba
Wongee left his tent and at once went towards the point attacked.
He found his troops already retreating, and that the two outer
stockades had been carried by the enemy. He rallied his men, and
himself led the way to the attack; but the steady and continuous
fire of the British rendered it impossible for him to restore
order, and the Burmese remained crowded together, in hopeless
confusion. However, he managed to gather together a body of
officers and troops and, with them, charged desperately upon the
British soldiers. He, with several other leaders of rank, was
killed; and the Burmese were scattered through the jungle, leaving
eight hundred dead behind them.

The fact that ten stockades, provided with thirty pieces of artillery,
should have been captured in one day by the British, had created a
deep impression among the villagers of the neighbourhood--from whom
the truth could not be concealed--and indeed, all the villages, for
many miles round the scene of action, were crowded with wounded. They
told Meinik that the army was, for a time, profoundly depressed. Many
had deserted, and the fact that stockades they had thought impregnable
were of no avail, whatever, against the enemy, whose regular and
combined action was irresistible, as against their own isolated and
individual method of