No time was now lost in advancing upon the retreating army. On the 9th of December the march of the British columns began, and their path lay along “dismal swamps,” and jungles, which, overrun with every kind of reeds and elephant-grass, presented a dreary and dispiriting aspect to the troops. Indeed, the effect of the marshy country was soon felt on the army, for on the 12th the cholera broke out among the troops, and, according to Lieutenant-Colonel Tulloch,[318] nearly two regiments were placed in an unfit condition for action. At Meaday the sight was sad enough. “Within and among the stockades,” says Mac Farlane,[319] “the ground was strewed with dead and dying Burmese lying promiscuously together, the victims of wounds, of disease, or of want. Several large gibbets stood about the stockade, each bearing the mouldering remains of three or four crucified Burmese, who had been thus barbarously put to death for having wandered from their posts in search of food, or for having followed the example of their chiefs in flying from the enemy.”[320] I must pass briefly over subsequent events. Conferences for the purpose of settling a peace were sought and obtained by the Burmese; but the negotiations came to nothing. It seemed that all feelings of any kind had left them. They neither sought to conclude a peace, nor, on the other hand, did they prepare for contesting the advance of the army on the capital. At last, after much deliberation and little determination, a treaty of peace was concluded by commissioners appointed for that purpose, through the intervention of a priest. However, after all, it never reached the king for his ratification. “During the conferences,” however, “the Burman commissioners repeatedly declared their being furnished with full powers, and their firm persuasion, that whatever they agreed to, the king would ratify; they expressed their entire satisfaction with the spirit in which the negotiations had been conducted by the British commissioners, and their gratification at the prospect of a speedy renewal of friendly relations; they made no secret of their motives, and frankly and unreservedly admitted that the king had been ruined by the war, that the resources of the country were exhausted, and that the road to Ava was open to the British army. There appears every reason to credit their assertions, and all who had an opportunity of exercising personal observation were impressed with this conviction, that the negotiators were honest.”[321] I cannot, however, but point out to the reader that there appears to be a singular dash of cunning in their confessions. The king was ruined, at least so they said; thus it was useless ever to require money for expenses. Otherwise, there seems to be simplicity enough.