On the second march out the Sawbwa of Laikha and the Myoza of Möng Kung were met coming to meet the Superintendent. They turned and marched with the column. They said that difficulties in procuring supplies had delayed them, and the truth of this statement was proved by the appearance of the countryside when the next march brought the force into Laikha territory--a wide billowy plain not long ago closely cultivated and well peopled: now deserted and waste. "The face of the land," wrote the Superintendent, "was deserted and desolate as an American pampas or a Russian steppe. We marched along the main north road which had clearly been not long since a wide thoroughfare travelled over by many men and many cattle. Now it was narrowed to a mere path which encroaching bushes and rank grass threatened at no great distance of time altogether to obliterate. Marks of tigers were seen here and there on the clay trodden hard by the feet of many wayfarers now no more to be seen. The few householders who remained were gaunt with hunger, and had not energy enough left to pull up the bamboo spikes which had been placed in the ground during the fighting which was the primary cause of all this misery, emphasized by the famine which succeeded as a necessary result. The Hsen (local headman) spiked his foot coming out to meet the column." The description of the town of Laikha is not less melancholy. It has been on the decline for years. "Civil wars and local disturbances have ruined it slowly but surely." It was one of the finest and wealthiest places in the State, and there were many splendid monasteries and elaborate pagodas. These were found deserted and falling to pieces, the shrines left to moulder away without a single pious offering, the jungle coming up to their very thresholds and creepers tearing the bricks asunder.