was not employed either in the relief of Pegu, or in the operations of a column sent to clear the jungles round Martaban. For many months it continued to form part of the garrison of Prome, which was invested by the Burmese, who surrounded the place with stockades, thrown up in the jungle, a mile or two beyond our outposts. In November three companies helped to destroy one of these works, whose defenders had been active in intercepting supplies brought in by friendly natives. Later in the month two companies under Brevet-Major Edwards were sent on a much longer expedition; they formed the British contingent in a small column sent to rid the districts of Khangheim and Padaung of the enemy. Crossing to the right bank they worked up-stream, and at first met with little opposition, though they were “sniped at” by night. “On one occasion the watering-place was surrounded by a small party, and several sepoys who had gone there to fill their drinking-vessels were killed or wounded. The column passed the spot where a few days before the Captain of a native regiment with a small body of his men was surprised by the Burmese, and the place where they were beheaded was still plainly discernible by the blood-stains on the stones. The heads of the Captain and two men had been sent to Ava; their bodies were left on the banks of the river till buried by the English.”[153] The senior officer of the column broke down in health; Edwards succeeded to the command; and from the Digest of Service it appears that after several successful skirmishes he drove the Burmese into a place called Tomah, where he hemmed them in until March, 1853, when reinforcements of all arms enabled him to storm their stockade, and capture their guns, stores, and bullock-carts. During a lull in these operations Major Edwards was sent on a difficult, but interesting piece of work--to lead a small column to the top of the Tonghoo pass over the Yo-Ma range of mountains between Burma and Aracan, and there take charge of a hundred and forty-eight elephants, sent from India by the Governor-General to reinforce the transport of the army. Edwards’ command was composed of a hundred of the XVIIIth under Major Borrow, the same number of the 80th, two hundred Sikhs, and a few Madras Sappers and Miners, with three thousand coolies to carry the supplies and drive the slaughter cattle. All went well till the column began to ascend the foothills of the main range, when the coolies, frightened at the steep, jungle-covered slopes, flung down their loads and deserted in a body. As the European troops could carry but a portion of the stores, they soon ran out of tea, biscuit, and spirits, and had to fall back upon beef-on-the-hoof, and for many days had nothing to eat but meat; to the Sikhs, whose religion debared them from animal food, a small quantity of grain was supplied. A day or two after this breakdown of the transport the guides confessed that they had lost their way, so Edwards decided