I was soon taken from Secretariat work and sent as civil officer with a column. A detachment of Madras Cavalry without support had been sent to repair the telegraph line between Ava and Myingyan. They had met with resistance and been forced to return. The task was then entrusted to an adequate force. Two guns, British infantry, Madras Cavalry, and Madras Pioneers were placed under the command of Major Fenwick, I.S.C. Captain R. A. P. Clements[100] was staff officer; Mr. H. d’U. Keary[101] and Mr. Rainey[102] were of our party. At Ava, where we halted before starting on our march, Maung Hlwa, the local Wun, came in and made his submission, among the first-fruits of Burmese loyalty in that part of the country. Maung Hlwa, I am glad to say, still survives and draws his pension. He was an official of the good old Upper Burman type. Not over-educated, without very delicate scruples, of proved courage, with boundless personal influence (awza), wherever he was sent he was a loyal and useful servant of Government. No better man than he to bring a troublesome township into order. He was one of the Burmese officers who went to the Coronation Durbar at Delhi in 1903, where he was deeply impressed by the pomp and splendour of the occasion. On this march he was of the utmost service, though I am not quite sure that he did not take advantage of the opportunity to pay off some old scores. So quiet seemed the country and so little did we expect attack that I used to ride for miles along the river-bank and through the jungle at Ava with no other companion but Maung Hlwa. Yet within a month, at Sagaing on the opposite bank, four officers were attacked within sight of the Government steamer _Irrawaddy_, and three of their number slain by dacoits who issued from ambush, cut down their victims, and disappeared before the rest of the party, walking not a couple of hundred yards behind, were aware of what had happened. The fall of Mandalay had been so sudden that it had not yet been realized in rural places, and the forces of opposition had not yet been organized. Very soon the turmoil began. It was then long before officers were able to travel without escort in Upper Burma.