Meanwhile the enemy had been seen on the west side of the river, marching across the plains of Dalla towards Rangoon. They were formed in five or six different divisions, and moved with great regularity, led by numerous chiefs on horse-back--their gilt umbrellas glittering in the rays of the sun--with a sufficiently formidable and imposing effect. Opposite Rangoon the leading column of five or six Burmese divisions began entrenching and throwing up batteries, while their main body was stockading in the jungle. In the course of the day several heavy columns issued from the forest, and successively took up their ground along a woody ridge, gently sloping towards Rangoon. Here they commenced operations with their entrenching tools, and with such activity and good will that in the course of a couple of hours their whole line was covered; their flags and banners, which had been flying in profusion, all disappeared, and nothing was seen but a parapet of fresh-turned earth, gradually increasing in height. The moving masses, which had so very lately attracted anxious attention, had sunk into the ground; and, by anyone who had not witnessed the whole scene, the existence of these subterranean legions would not have been credited. The occasional movement of a chief with his gilt umbrella from place to place, superintending the progress of their labour, was the only thing that now attracted notice. By a distant observer the hills, covered with mounds of earth, would have been taken for anything rather than the approaches of an attacking army. Even to those who had watched the whole strange proceeding, it seemed the work of magic or enchantment. But, thus working like moles in the earth, the Burmese could no more see than they could be seen; and, in the afternoon, Major Sale, with his Majesty's 13th Regiment and a regiment of Madras Native Infantry, moving rapidly forward upon the busily employed and too confident enemy, fell upon them before they were well aware of the visit, and drove the whole line from their earthworks with considerable loss.