incendiary papers.

I warned all of our men that

the rebellion would soon be using the printingpress. Some of the last manuscript papers I intercepted told me plainly they were hoping for a printing-press. I have not seen the papers with my own eyes, but a friend has seen three issues printed in Rangoon. This dacoit seed will bear a bloody crop if it is watered by the present imbecility.

"This is the busiest season of the year, as you well know, when I can scarcely get a sight of my people in ordinary years. Now they are swarming to town to beg for arms—never so anxious as at present. I have officially reported that our mission is now a thousand guns short of making things safe, and two thousand short of being able to give efficient aid, yet nothing is done but to harass the lives out of us, when all we want is to arm ourselves at exorbitant expense even to serve our Queen and country."

"I have just reached home from an enlisting tour, undertaken to pick three hundred men from six hundred volunteers.

"There are too many villages of Karens being

dacoited in the north of Sittang for me to be able to distinguish one from another.

"Bunker (the hero of the Mayankhyoung poongyee fights), our man at Toungoo, had come down to consult me, and had to bolt home because the dacoit troops now besieging Ningyan had been making forays for provisions across the old frontier north-east of Toungoo. Several villages had been dacoited, and Bunker rushed home to do his best without ammunition to defend himself (we regard our flocks as ourselves). I have not received particulars of the raids, but merely find out that the dacoit troops (I use the words advisedly) now besieging Ningyan are so numerous as to have eaten up all the food procurable in the valley of the Sittang, and that, rather than give up the siege, they have sent their foraging-parties out among our poor half-armed Karens, defenceless for want of ammunition. I find the following letter from Bunker on my table, dated the 28th of September :

"DEAR VINTON,-Ningyan is truly in a state of siege. The agent of the B.B.T.C. has just informed me that his steam-launch ran the blockade both up and down, and that in going up one sepoy was killed and seven wounded seriously. They were

fired at with jingals and rifles. run till the blockade is broken.

Steamers will not

One Bhoda rajah

is in command of two thousand troops, and seems to be well armed, and has plenty of ammunition.'

"Bunker adds he has no doubt the police give their ammunition to the dacoits by understanding. He says

“At a recent raid on dacoits at Ningyan, the military officer was obliged to take a civil officer so called, a Burman myo-oke.

"When he had his troops ready to charge, or about ready, this myo-oke discharged his piece twice, and warned the dacoits, and they all got off scot free. He was arrested, but not shot.

"I have sent up fifty Red Karens, and the B.B.T.C. want twenty more. They seem to be doing very well.'

"This Bhoda rajah and another Dhamma rajah have full swing in the whole Sittang valley, and the troops are simply powerless. I scarcely dare write what I hear about the state of things between the civil and military departments. No military officer can march on the foe without a civil officer. This is often a puppy of a Burman, both a coward and disloyal to the core. Not a shot can be fired till the civil officer permits it.

'My sincere belief is that more than half of the Burmese officials will do all they can for the rebellion. Only one myo-oke has openly joined the rebellion, for they can be of so much more service to their friends by sending intelligence and ammunition as at present. This Bhoda rajah to whom Mr. Bunker alludes is issuing commissions to hold office in Lower Burma. Five such commissions have been captured by Karens. We shall have it hot in November. I am stockading my villages, and enrolling them. The worst of all is the want of ammunition. To get a pound of powder, a Karen must get first at his own deputycommissioner. This costs time and money for bribes, without which no Karen can get anything from a deputy-commissioner, through the ring of Burmese understrappers. Then he must come to Rangoon and get a second order. This has often taken a week, for if the slightest ruffle in the red tape can be detected, delay results. The other day a permit was impounded for about a week, because the deputy-commissioner had used the wrong printed form, and had corrected it with the pen !

"The thing is simply intolerable when you even think of the distances the men must march, the days they must wait, and the money they must

spend to get a single pound of powder. They are allowed no more for a whole year. Be prepared next to hear of Karen cowardice—giving up their arms as meekly as police.

"Can you fight for your gun without ammunition? I can't.

"I've warned Government that I have not powder to defend my guns, and yet, while I am personally responsible for their safety, I can't get powder without all this circumlocution. The danger to-day is too great to bring all the able-bodied men to town, after marching a week or two to find a deputy-commissioner, and then to wait as they do in the Rangoon office.

Meanwhile, the dacoits can get plenty of the best American rifles dirt cheap-a quarter of Rangoon prices-and all the powder and caps they want, across the Siamese frontier. The authorities think this source has been blocked, but my Zuninay correspondents tell me of large shipments arriving, and being promptly sent off to their destination. No one is to be harassed but loyal Karens.

"At a large meeting held on the 29th, the Karen leaders told me that the poongyees were tattooing their men, and assuring them of the safe arrival of plenty of arms and powder.