The column now turned south to Sinbo, and from that base moved out to punish the villages concerned in the barbarous raids on Nanpapa and Hlegyomaw. The villages concerned having been taken after some resistance, the task assigned to Captain O'Donnell was completed on the 4th of May. In these four expeditions our casualties amounted to one officer and three men killed, and five officers and thirty men (including followers) wounded. The column was engaged with Kachins thirty-two times, and took forty-six stockades. Owing to the loss of a month by the sickness at Kamaing, the work was more hurried than the Chief Commissioner had designed. The results, however, were very good, and had been obtained with more ease and less bloodshed than had been expected. By the occupation of Kamaing, the trade route to the jade-mines was opened and made safe. The Marip tribe who dominate the jade-mines, and the Sassum tribe who adjoin the amber-mines, were freed from Po Saw's pressure and their loyalty assured. Villages from the Kachin tribes came in by scores to make formal submission to the Assistant Commissioner at Mogaung. Of the Thama Sawbwa's villages only Thama and two others held out; the Ithi tribe, the Kachins round Sinbo, and the Lakun tribe south of the Ithi country all submitted. In short, the peace of the district was secured and the authority of the Government established. From the number of casualties it might be inferred that the service was one of little danger. The inference would be wholly wrong. The column was engaged in bush or jungle fighting with the enemy almost every day, and if our casualties were not greater it was due as well to the precautions taken by the leader and to his skilful tactics as to the failure of the Kachins to defend their stockades. The heaviest part of the work fell on the Gurkhas of the Mogaung Levy (military police), who furnished the flanking parties. Without them the force must have lost heavily. "The flanking done by the Gurkhas was splendid indeed, and it is entirely owing to their jungle work that I had not more casualties."[51] The column marched over six hundred and fifty miles, fighting continually, and the men's clothes and boots were torn to pieces. It was a fine display of patient endurance, courage, and persistence, in face of great difficulties, by officers and men. The Commander, Captain O'Donnell, was one of the soldiers to whom the Administration of Burma in those days owed so much. And he was greatly assisted by Lieutenant L. E. Eliott, to whom fell the difficult duty of providing good guides and correct information.