so terribly clannish you cannot scratch one of them but the whole clan knows it and resents it.

"That's the way to get men to serve for nothing, isn't it? At the same time, I reported to the same high official how the dacoits got their arms, cheap and good-the best American rifles down to French carbines. I sent him our missionary to Zuninay to describe the whole trade from Bangkok to Yahaing and Zuninay, and how the arms and ammunition flowed without restriction across the frontier, and were openly sold all over the Amherst district. I offered, if he would give me permission, that I would go across and buy up the arms and ammunition for my Karens. I sent a certificate from the Rev. Mr. Bunker that boxes of five hundred military caps, sold in Rangoon for five rupees, only cost eight annas in Toungoo-smuggled via Molsyai. I pleaded most earnestly against the loyal Karens being the only ones to be refused decent arms and ammunition, while the dacoits were not harassed at all.

"I might as well have pleaded to a post. In the most polite terms, in language expressing the highest gratitude for the noble service done, I was firmly told that the rules were inflexible. It is just such polite, gentlemanly, estimable men by whom

empires are lost. Bad men, vicious men, can be fought. Such fine fellows for peace times are our greatest danger to-day.

"While I am calling for enlistments, my best men and my brother missionaries are calling a halt. Can you blame the Karen if he quietly goes off and buys the smuggled ammunition ('to keep it from dacoits,' one said to me this morning), and quietly stockades his villages, and settles down to defence pure and simple, leaving the dacoits to fight it out?

"The Karens are beginning to say to me, 'Let us merely drive the dacoits out of Karen tracts, fighting on our own hook, and not put ourselves under the control of the Burmans.' The Burmans now see the mistake they made in pitching into the Karens, and are beginning to plead with our villages to promise not to attack them, and induce the Karen to remain neutral. This is an old dacoit dodge of many decades' standing. I fear it more than any other. In reply, I am urging it on my people that the brutes are not to be trusted; and that when they have eaten up the Burman villages, they will make a meal of the Karen: 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.'

"If I could be let alone I'd have every village

trained at ball-practice at their own expense till I could always turn out whatever men I wanted, and at whatever time, and men who wouldn't 'shoot like sepoys,' and known to be dead shots. This alone would prevent the dacoits ever facing I don't ask for help or money; I only want to be let alone. Tell me the work to be done, and if I can't get Karens to do it, nobody else need try.

us.

"At one-half the cost the Karens would gladly do the entire work of scouring Lower Burma, and relieve every sepoy out of the city garrisons for service in Upper Burma. Yesterday morning the first corps of Karen levies crossed the old frontier, marching for Ningyan, where the rebels are in strongest force. I would undertake to march them to Mogoung, far above Bhamo. Under their own officers, and commanded by men they trust, they will go anywhere, and do what no troops can do. You could put ten thousand such men in the field for little more than the cost of a sepoy regiment; but they must be led by men.

"You would be pleased to see the change the war has made in the bearing of the Karen. I've seen him flaunt his national Karen dress, and say proudly,' Yes, I'm a loyal Karen, and what have you to say to that?' to the proud Burman.

"Near a court-house I saw a Karen chief in full dress. He had brought down some dead dacoits. A dandy Burman, all in silk, with gold watchchain, tried to crowd him off the road as usual. The Karen pushed him contemptuously out of the way, and sternly said, 'Let that teach you to make way for the Karen "thin daing" hereafter.'

"Yesterday I got word that the siege of Ningyan was raised, and the beleaguering force was streaming down into the Toungoo district. Konee, with fifty of a Karen levy, alone was left to oppose them. He had cut up one of their foraging-parties; but, as the Burmese were in overwhelming force, he was obliged to try the same tactics I noted about the Mayankhyoung-decline action, and cut up foraging-parties till he gets the rebels down to numbers he can fight at close quarters.

"To-day comes serious news from the Rev. Mr. Bunker, who has fought so well all through. He writes, Shans just in declared last night that all the Shan people, even Mobyae (heretofore our staunch ally), joined the Myin-Zainy prince against the English, and that in the recent battles around Ningyan the soldiers in uniform were Shan forces.' There seems to be little doubt about this, for I hear from other sources that such soldiers were

seen in the battles about Ningyan. If it is true, it is a bad outlook for Government. A Karen just arrived from Ningyan tells me the same story, though he doesn't know that I have the news from other sources.

"Piteous letters were received from the Mobyae Tsawbwa last December. They came to our mission, and were forwarded, with translations, to the secretariat. He said he should be forced to join a league of the Shan Tsawbwas against us, unless he were supported. Now, it appears, his fears have proved true. Neglected by us, he has been obliged to join our foes. If we have the Shans on top of the Burmans, we shall have a job for Sir H. Macpherson next cold weather, I can assure you. Till we can give up harassing our friends and petting our foes, we may as well give up hoping for success.

"Karens laugh at me when I tell them Sir H. Macpherson is going to scour Burma' next year. They say the dacoits will hide their arms, send their chiefs into the jungle, and meet the troops, and be good boys till the army passes, and then go ahead again at their normal business of dacoity. In both previous wars the professional dacoits, the Thugs of Burma, retreated to what we