That these subdivisions should be entrusted to native Extra Assistant Commissioners is an indication of the advance made in twenty years. CHAPTER XVI MANDALAY--THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION Early in 1897 I was once more in Mandalay, well pleased to be again among my friends in Upper Burma. In the short period of my charge of the Mandalay Division occurred the inevitable rising for which the time was ripe. In Burma a small rebellion breaks out with almost seasonable regularity. One evening, as I was on the point of going to the Club, then sumptuously housed in the western halls of the Palace, Mr. (now Sir George) Scott came in. Instead of going to the Club, we drove round Mandalay Hill. It was October, and the festival which marks the end of Buddhist Lent was being celebrated. At the Kuthodaw[249] Pagoda we alighted and mingled with the crowd. Pwès were being played, and the scene was vivid with a gay and giddy throng of men, women, and children, decked with jewels and clad in rainbow-coloured silks. We met several friends, among them the Shwehlan Myowun, with whom Mr. Scott renewed an old acquaintance.[250] This was not the time of year when disturbance is expected. The October festival is one of peace and good-will, when the shadows of Lent have departed, when merry lights go sailing down the river, when the prospect of harvest is in sight. It is, moreover, a sure sign that no trouble is apprehended when women and children are seen in swarms at pwès and public assemblies. So with cheerful hearts we resumed our drive, while with unconscious irony I explained to Mr. Scott the profoundness of our security, our firm hold on Mandalay, my confidence that nothing untoward could happen without timely warning. We sat down to dinner, and got as far as coffee and cheroots. Sir George Scott still regrets that he never tasted that coffee. For at this moment in ran Mr. Snadden, the Superintendent of Police, saying: “There is an insurrection. You had better come and see about it.” When we arrived on the scene, the insurrection had been suppressed. A very agèd monk had announced himself as the coming King, the reincarnation of a Prince dead some centuries ago. He possessed the power of making his followers invisible and invulnerable, always an advantage, especially to a small force contending against superior numbers. Perhaps his forces would not be so small, for presently he would throw leaves into the air and they would come down as armed men. His occult power he proved by walking thrice round his monastery and disappearing from sight. “Of course,” said the Kinwun Mingyi, as he related the story afterwards, not wishing to impose upon my simplicity, “he hid himself somewhere.” With such old wives’ tales, and with promises of place and power, he beguiled a score of wretched dupes, mostly as old as himself. They sat and plotted beneath the humble mat-and-thatch monastery where the monk lived. My confidence that we should be warned in time was not misplaced.