On the arrival at the mouth of the river we found the entrance most formidable in appearance, there being a dozen or more stockades of great extent; but there were but two manned, the guns of the others, as well as the men, having been forwarded to Donabue, the Burmahs not imagining, as we had so long left that part of their territory unmolested, that we should have attempted it. Our passage was therefore easy; after a few broadsides, we landed and spiked the guns, and then, with a fair wind, ran about seventy miles up one of the most picturesque and finest rivers I was ever in. Occasionally the right lines of stockades presented themselves, but we found nobody in them, and passed by them in peace. But the river now became more intricate, and the pilots, as usual, knew nothing about it. It was, however, of little consequence; the river was deep even at its banks, over which the forest trees threw their boughs in wild luxuriance. The wind was now down the river, and we were two or three days before we arrived at Bassein, during which we tided and warped how we could, while Major S-- grumbled. If the reader wishes to know why Major S-- grumbled, I will tell him--because there was no fighting. He grumbled when we passed the stockades at the entrance of the river because they were not manned; and he grumbled at every dismantled stockade that we passed. But there was no pleasing S--; if he was in hard action and not wounded, he grumbled; if he received a slight wound, he grumbled because it was not a severe one; if a severe one, he grumbled because he was not able to fight the next day. He had been nearly cut to pieces in many actions, but he was not content. Like the man under punishment, the drummer might strike high or strike low, there was no pleasing S--: nothing but the _coup de grace_, if he be now alive, will satisfy him. But notwithstanding this mania for being carved, he was an excellent and judicious officer. I have been told he is since dead; if so, his Majesty has lost one of the most devoted and chivalric officers in his service, to whom might most justly be applied the words of Hotspur,--"But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive." [See note 1.]