On his arrival, in consultation with Colonel Cumming, the expenditure was examined and the whole situation discussed in Rangoon, and afterwards both officers met me in Mandalay. There was much difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of engineers and a competent engineering establishment. The Indian Public Works service in the higher grades is recruited in England, and the subordinates are appointed in India. Service in Burma was for many reasons unpopular with men trained in India. The other provinces were not anxious to part with their best men. Hence the men who came to Burma were frequently unwilling and sometimes not very efficient. The difficulty was to apportion the existing establishment as fairly as possible between the two provinces, so as to give Major Gracey a fair number of men with Burman experience. With Major Gracey's help everything went on well, and as fast as possible. A list of the work done in 1887 would fill a page. The grant for military works in that year was £317,500. Permanent barracks at Mandalay and Bhamo, and a great number of temporary buildings to accommodate troops, were erected all over Burma in the first year of Major Gracey's tenure. Many of the temporary buildings were put up by military and civil officers; but after a time, all military buildings were carried out by the Public Works Department. The Civil Works grant was nearly £350,000. The provinces had no court-houses, no jails, no places of detention at the police stations, and no barracks or accommodation for the military police. Two larger jails, one at Mandalay for eight hundred prisoners and one at Myingyan for one thousand, although not yet completed, were already occupied. Of three smaller prisons at Monywa, Pagan, and Minbu, one was finished and two partially, but enough to be of use. At ten stations small lock-ups were being built for persons arrested by the police. The jails and lock-ups were pressed on, because the existing arrangements for confining prisoners inherited from the Burmese Government were insufferable, and in some cases inhuman. Provision had to be made for housing some thousands of military police. At the headquarters of eighteen districts accommodation had to be provided for about half a battalion, with hospitals, guard-rooms, magazines, and cook-houses. These buildings, especially the hospitals with accommodation for 8 per cent. of the strength, were constructed of good permanent material. The barracks, officers' quarters, stables, and the like were built in the cheapest way consistent with comfort and health. The condition of the country in a year or two would permit, it was expected, of a reduction of the military police force, or at least of a change in its disposition; the barrack accommodation would not be permanently wanted, but the hospitals could be used for the civil population.