he was led to believe that three or four days’ march would bring him to Myat Toon’s stockades, he decided to fill up his transport with seven or eight days’ rations, dash on his enemy, defeat him, and then hasten back to the steamers. Leaving behind him the sick, who, though it was barely a week since he left Prome, were already numerous, he plunged into an unknown country, where his guides proved useless, his information defective and misleading. He could not find the main body of Myat Toon’s men, though skirmishing dacoits hung on his flanks, and in four days he was obliged to fall back to the river for supplies. He now transferred his base to Donobyu, which was known to have been evacuated by the enemy, and sending his empty carts there by land under escort of a party of the XVIIIth, he re-embarked with the remainder of his troops for Donobyu, where he remained till the 7th of March, when the native regiment joined him, and with it a draft of recruits for the 80th and a large supply of commissariat stores. After providing for the safety of his base and of another batch of sick men, General Cheape started on his second hunt for Myat Toon, whose entrenchments he was again assured could be reached in three days. Now began a campaign, short in duration, but harassing beyond measure to the troops engaged in it. The soldiers had to feel their way along narrow paths, often obstructed by trees cut down across the track by foes, who rarely showed themselves by day, though they disturbed the bivouac by sniping shots at night. To bridge the nullahs took much time and labour; the burden of guarding the transport carts was heavy; the heat was steamy, exhausting, and depressing; fog hung over the face of the land until several hours after sunrise; the water was tainted, and cholera broke out among the men. Then rations began to run short, and the column was obliged to halt four days in this pestilential forest while a convoy brought up fresh supplies from Donobyu. After forming an advance base for his spare stores and the sick and wounded, Cheape once more pushed forward, and on the 17th the right wing came upon traces of the enemy, who had blocked the track with a series of abattis and recently felled trees. The Royal Irish were leading, for Wigston, remembering that it was St Patrick’s Day and anxious to do honour to the occasion, had detailed them as advance-guard to give them every chance of a fight, if the Burmese would so far oblige them. After they had turned these obstacles, or cut their way through them, they ran against a stockade held by Myat Toon’s followers, and with a wild yell dashed at the work, which with the help of the Sikhs they carried “most gallantly” at the point of the bayonet.[156] The defenders did not wait for the cold steel, but after firing up to the last moment bolted into the jungle. One man, however, lingered too long over his parting shot, and was pursued by two subalterns, Hewitt