It being important to ascertain the number and position of the enemy posted on the banks of the Irrawaddy, Commodore Lambert directed Captain Tarleton to take under his orders HMS _Medusa_ and three Company's steamers, and to proceed up the river for the purpose of obtaining that information. Accordingly, on the 6th of July, the vessels proceeded up the Irrawaddy. At a place called Konnoughee, twenty-five miles below Prome, a large body of armed men were observed collected on the banks; and on a shell being fired among them, they opened a vigorous fire from six guns and from a large number of musketry. At a short distance from Prome the river divides into two streams,--the left, or western, being the deepest, and the only navigable branch at any season but the rainy one. At sunset the expedition anchored off Meaoung. At daylight on the 8th it again weighed, and proceeded till within sight of an extensive fortification, crowning the end of a ridge of hills 300 feet high, terminating abruptly at the town of Akouktoung, which completely commands the river. Here, the position being strongly fortified, a Burmese army of about 10,000 men had been assembled, under General Bundoola, to guard the passage to Prome and the capital. Captain Tarleton having been warned of the resistance he would meet, and hearing from the native pilots that at that season the eastern stream was navigable, determined to try it. Instead, therefore, of keeping on, to the disappointment of the enemy, who had begun to fire on him, he turned off through the eastern channel, and was quickly beyond their reach, having had not less than two fathoms water in the channel. By steaming through the night, the rest of the squadron came off Prome by daylight on the morning of the 9th. At the south end of the town, near the water's edge, four heavy guns were seen, but no troops were observed in the place. Captain Tarleton accordingly anchored the _Medusa_ abreast of the spot, and soon hove them off. The iron guns were disabled and sunk in deep water, and the brass ones were taken on board. When the other vessels joined their crews with the boats' crews of the _Fox_, heartily entering on the work, every gun in Prome, twenty-three in number, was brought off. In the afternoon the _Medusa_ ascended the river ten miles higher; but Captain Tarleton felt himself bound by his orders to return. His feelings may be supposed when he thus found himself at Prome, within four days' steaming of Ava, with a certain knowledge that there was nothing to oppose him, and with a broad, deep river, easy of navigation, before him. Had he had with him one regiment and half a battery of guns, there is every reason to believe he might have taken the capital, so totally unprepared were the Burmese for any advance in the rains.