In the first phase of the campaign of 1852-53, the operations were chiefly confined to the capture of important towns near the mouths of the great rivers which, rising in the Himalayas, flow through the swamps and forests of Burma on their way to the Indian Ocean. The war-steamers forced their way up the streams and engaged the stockades and other defences on the banks; while the soldiers landed, stormed these works, and then, pushing forward into the jungle, carried the towns by assault. While the operations were confined to the immediate neighbourhood of rivers and navigable creeks no question of land transport arose, but when it became necessary to send columns of troops deep into the interior of the country, the innumerable difficulties of fighting in a pathless and tropical jungle at once made themselves felt. The ships could indeed bring stores to the point on the river from which the column struck inland; they could hold a base upon which the troops could fall back in case of need; but there the power of the navy ceased. The wants of the soldiers could only be supplied by bullock-carts or elephants, and the long lines of transport animals had to wind their way through a densely wooded country, admirably suited to the guerilla tactics of surprises and ambuscades. Like the Chinese, the Burmans though brave as individuals were undisciplined as soldiers, and as a rule preferred to fight behind ramparts to meeting their enemy in the field. In China the garrisons of the cities waited our attack behind high stone walls; in Burma the defenders of the towns manned huge timber stockades, in the building of which they were very skilful. A nation of woodsmen, with their sharp square-pointed swords they could hew down forest trees and run up timber barricades with extreme rapidity, and when time was allowed them they could produce really formidable fortifications, such as those awaiting the British at Rangoon. These consisted of a substantial rampart, fourteen or fifteen feet high, about twelve feet wide on the top, and revetted within and without by great teak logs placed vertically, with the lower ends sunk in the ground. The intervening space was filled with well-rammed earth. The logs of the outer revetment stretched up some six feet or more above the level of the parapet, every fourth or fifth log being cut some three feet shorter than the others to form loopholes and embrasures. There were many flanking towers; traverses protected the gates; the ditches were deep, often flooded with water, and protected by thick abattis. Guns, varying in calibre from 32-prs. to wall pieces and gingals, were mounted on the parapets. The infantry were armed with flint-lock muskets, many of them old weapons, worn out and sold as scrap iron by the British military authorities.