The military character of the Burmese is well summed up by Snodgrass in the following terms:[77]—“When engaged in offensive warfare, which in their native quarrels has generally been the case, the Burmese is arrogant, bold, and daring; possessed of strength and activity superior to all his neighbours, and capable of enduring great fatigue, his movements are rapid, and his perseverance in overcoming obstacles almost irresistible: possessed, too, of superior science and ability in their peculiar system of fighting, he had seldom met his equal in the field, or even experienced serious resistance in the numerous conquests which of late years had been added to the empire, until the increasing arrogance and aggressions of his government brought him at last in contact with an enemy of a very different description from any he had yet contended with, and presented his military character in a different light, divested of the glare which victory and success had long shed around it.” Arrogant and daring, indeed, when the Burman name alone was sufficient to cause the wild tribes of the frontier to lay down their arms, and humbly beg for peace on any terms. Before closing this chapter, it were well to give some account of that celebrated appendage to Burman state, the white elephant. I shall here take occasion to introduce a description of them by an old traveller, the first Englishmen indeed who ever visited Burmah. It is given in Hakluyt’s collection of “Nauigations, Traffiques, and Discoueries.”[78]