While the results of these overtures were being awaited, it became urgent to attend to the quarrel between Möngpai, the most southerly of the Shan States, and Pobye, the chief of Western Karenni, which adjoins Möngpai on the south. A perennial feud existed between them, and at this time had broken out with fresh energy. Both the combatants had written to Mr. Hildebrand praying him to send a British officer with a force to put a stop to the strife which was ruining the country. In answer to this appeal Mr. Scott, with a hundred Gurkhas under command of Captain Pulley, was sent southward to Payagon, where the Burmese garrison used to be stationed, and near which the Möngpai Sawbwa had now made his residence. They made the journey of seventy miles by boat down the Nam Pilu River through a fertile and irrigated country, which had evidently suffered much from both the contending factions. The Sawbwa received Mr. Scott with hospitality and welcomed the settlement of the Shan States under the British Crown. He said he had prayed for this and urged it on his compatriots for thirty years. "Now that the British have come," he exclaimed, "there will be peace." He asked for a British garrison at Payagon, as a protection against the Karennis, who raided the Shan country for slaves. The Shans were quite unable to withstand them, and men and women were carried off into hopeless slavery (_vide_ Chapter XVII.). It had been intended that the force under Colonel Stedman should return to Burma by the southern passes to Toungoo, and that Mr. Scott with the troops accompanying him should remain at or about Möngpai until the main body joined him. Owing to some military exigencies this plan was changed, and the expedition was ordered to return by the route by which it came. Captain Pulley with Mr. Scott's escort was recalled at once to Fort Stedman. Mr. Scott had to withdraw, leaving unsettled many matters, more especially the quarrel between Möngpai and the Karenni chief Pobye, and without waiting for several headmen of neighbouring districts who were on their way to meet him. This was unfortunate.