of their number for shooting dacoits by police too cowardly to imitate Karen courage.

"Now, of course, they say, 'We had better defend. our own villages with our own guns, and let the Government fight the dacoits with their petted police.'

"They are having heavy fighting around Ningyan. A private letter from Ningyan, from a British officer, says the dacoits got within thirty yards of the field-pieces, and were beaten off with difficulty. I only hope the reinforcements will arrive in time; for they are besieged, in fact; dacoits trying night attacks, hoping to fire the town.

"The most extraordinary reports are rife of British reverses up country. Mandalay is almost daily recaptured, in rumour, with the most terrible slaughter. The Irrawaddy is burdened with British corpses, according to our disloyal alarmists.

"The limit of Burmese credulity has never yet been measured, and I despair of ever discovering it, provided the lying is only in the direction of flattering his inordinate vanity.

"A Government official told me that not thirty miles from Rangoon no one could be found to believe that Theebaw had been captured. In what

D

I should call dacoit newspapers, circulated in manuscript all over the country, he is described still, by those who claim to be eye-witnesses, as reigning in greater glory than before, having acquired many new titles of honour for the doughty deeds of war performed in person on those miserable, cowardly Kullahs..

"News last night tells me that a rebellion in posse, that I've been watching for months, and kept from bursting several times by marching my levies, is coming on us. Last night's news is that they are beginning to assemble, tattoo, and threaten again.

"I fear we shall have to watch this as we watched the rising that killed St. Barbe, and let it burst, only keeping our villages safe, and letting the Government sup its own folly to the full, as they did with St. Barbe's insurrection, started within a mile of one of our chapels, and which we could have prevented with twenty-five men in an hour.

"We are still hampered to death to get arms to buy. Just on a technical point the other day I was refused permission to distribute a hundred guns I had got out for the Karens. I am now one thousand guns short of making the Karen tracts safe.

"I showed a high official yesterday, by evidence which even he accepted as correct, that floods of ammunition and arms were pouring across the Maulmain frontier from Siam for the dacoits. Loyal Karens were the only men to be harassed. Dacoits could get cheap and abundant rifles of the most improved American patterns. The Karen alone must pay three times ordinary prices for guns more dangerous to him than to the dacoits.

"Even this failed to break the spell which the apotheosis of red tape has cast over all Burma."

"The Pegu rebellion of Burmese burst near the mouth of the Sittang. I was away on the Toungoo hills; but, though there is scarcely a Karen living near where the insurrection began, my people joined Colonels Street and Strover, and fought side by side with the sepoys far away from their homes. At the time the whole native population was convinced that the British raj was at an end, and that the only hope of safety was in joining the rebellion. The Government was simply at an end. Police posts were meekly handing over their arms, and myo-okes running for their lives.

"When the Toongyee detachment marched down

to join Colonel Strover, they were taunted that they were going to add their bodies to the heap of slaughtered sepoys. Not a man quailed, though taunted with stories of the dacoit invulnerability. The Toongyee church had been four times in action before I could be recalled from the Karennee frontier. This of course drew down the wrath of the whole Burman population.

to

"What business was it of these officious Karens

go and meddle? They were not even threatened by the rebellion. Why should they interfere?'

"The fighting of the Bassein mission was splendid. You will find it noticed in the violent crime report.

"In that report I get special credit for keeping the Hanthawaddy quiet-the only district where the peacock flag has not been hoisted. The Hanthawaddy is my practical answer to the question of the advisability of Karen levies. I am prouder of keeping the insurrection from bursting than of any action we have fought with the dacoits. 'Prevention is better than cure.' Here was the trouble. No one believed the Karen could fight.

"On the 7th of November, before the troops crossed the frontier, the Karens came down from the villages where St. Barbe's insurrection was even then starting. I was not at home, but they thought

the case was so urgent that they actually forced an entrance at Government House, and begged for arms from the Government, or to be allowed to purchase They went prepared to offer a battalion one thousand strong to accompany General Prendergast. Their fears were laughed to scorn. You can scarcely judge how all Rangoon had lost its head at the time. The only fear expressed was that there would not be resistance enough to justify annexation!

"When I reached my post from my sick-bed in Amherst, Mr. Bernard thought the Karens cowards to be so easily frightened, but said, 'We'll let them buy their guns just to allay their fears.'

'I don't believe Mr. Bernard ever would have allowed us arms had he believed one word of my reports. He merely thought to quiet the fears of the Karen cowards. Even after the Karens had been in action several times, Government House wouldn't believe Karens could fight.

"Before I got back from the Karen-nee frontier, my Karens went to a secretariat official in the last days of December, and offered a levy. The secretariat official was as much astonished as if a rabbit had appeared to him in full uniform and demanded a Henry-Martini rifle and offered to