It is difficult to say when Gatacre "found" himself--to use an expression that Mr. Rudyard Kipling has for ever endowed with psychological meaning; but there can be no doubt that the shifting scenes in which he played his part from the time he landed in India, in August 1880, till he commanded his regiment in June 1884, must have widened his outlook on life, must have quickened his sense of the opportunities before him, and have enabled him to gauge his own powers. India encourages individuality to {43} a very high degree; men live in small groups in stations that are hundreds of miles apart; in any one place there is (in a sense) only one man of any one grade, so that the labourers do not jostle one another, but each has enough elbow-room to play freely with his tools. [Sidenote: To Burma] At the conclusion of his time with General Hardinge in February 1882, Gatacre was sent to act as Assistant Quarter-Master-General to the Burmese Division, with headquarters at Rangoon, then under the command of General H. Prendergast. The British connection with this picturesque river-port dates from 1824, when Sir Archibald Campbell captured it after a feeble resistance. In the following year, owing to continued outrages on British subjects and the refusal of the King of Ava to enter into any treaty obligations with us, a British force advanced up the Irrawaddy to Prome, and stayed there throughout the rainy season. In October the Burmese Army made an organised attempt to recover the place; but the British forces repulsed the attack, and followed up the enemy to within four days' march of their capital at Ava. At this point the Burmese sued for peace: their apologies were accepted, and the country was evacuated, except for the sea-board provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim. The Province of Pegu was restored to the Burmese and remained in their hands till 1852, when fresh outrages and insolence on the part of another Burmese sovereign again gave rise to hostilities. At the conclusion of peace Pegu {44} was formally annexed by Proclamation, while Lord Dalhousie was Viceroy, under the name of Lower Burma, and Rangoon was made the seat of government. Upper Burma was at that time in a deplorable condition; the excesses of the ruler, who was called Pagan-min, are described as recalling the worst years of the later Roman Empire. With a change of dynasty in the person of Mindon-min, matters improved somewhat. The new ruler realised the value of European enterprise and capital; he allowed strangers of all nations to settle in the country, and protected travellers and explorers. A few years later a commercial treaty was negotiated with Great Britain, a Resident was received, and for his protection he was allowed a small guard and an armoured boat on the river. To commemorate his flourishing reign Mindon founded a new capital at Mandalay, and in 1874 had himself crowned there to fulfil a prophecy. [Sidenote: King Theebaw]