On December 17th, I at last received a letter from Mr. A. J. Morgan, the chief agent of the Bombay-Burmah Corporation at Kendat, acknowledging my letter of November 12th. He told me that three Europeans, Messrs. Allan, Roberts and Moncur, had been murdered on the River Chindwin by the Queen’s Secretary; that he and Messrs. Ruckstuhl and Bretto had been protected by the Kendat Woon, and four others by the Mengin Woon. He said the Chindwin valley was filling with dacoits, i.e., brigands, and that their position was very precarious. I at once wrote to the Woon thanking him warmly for the protection he had accorded to my fellow-subjects, and sent him a pair of handsome double-barrelled guns, one of them a rifle, as a present, also five hundred rupees, which I asked him to give to Mr. Morgan.

Feeling certain of the dangerous position of the British subjects at Kendat, if they were surrounded by disbanded soldiery who had turned brigands, I determined to march to the frontier, so as to be ready to give aid, if necessary. I accordingly asked the Maharajah to lend me 400 Manipuris, and 500 Kukis, and one mountain gun. With these, and fifty men of my escort of the 4th Bengal Infantry, under Subadar Baluk Ram Chowby, I marched off on December 19th.

My escort consisted of sixty men of all ranks, but I weeded out ten as not likely to stand the severe marches we might have to undertake. I then paraded the remainder and addressed them, saying that any man who felt himself unfit for service might fall out, and I should think none the worse of him. All stood fast, and then I said, “Now, I will not take you, unless you promise me not to fall sick, till you have escorted me back safely to Manipur.” The men gave a shout of acclamation, and I gave the order to march, and never had I better, braver or more devoted men under me, or men who bore hardship and want of all the little comforts of life more cheerfully.

We reached Moreh Tannah, where I had intended to halt and watch events, on December 23rd, and there I received a letter from Mr. Morgan, who described the state of things at Kendat as daily getting worse, and expressed his conviction that if the dacoits reached Kendat, the Woon would be unable to hold his own; he therefore hoped I might be able to afford them the aid they so sorely needed, as, unless a force marched to their assistance speedily, their lives would not be safe. On hearing this, I determined to march for Kendat at once, and by the rapidity of our movements overcome all resistance; indeed, not to allow the Burmese time to think of it. Accordingly we marched to Tamu, where the authorities at once submitted, and I declared the country annexed, and reappointed the old officials, pending further orders, promising my protection to all classes, and calling on the people to complain at once if any of my followers injured them.

All this done, we marched to Mamo, some miles beyond Tamu, where we halted in the rice fields attached to the village which was very strongly stockaded. My camp was at once filled with men, women and children, all disposed to be friendly and all willing to receive little presents. It was a pretty feature of the Kubo valley, as of Upper Burmah generally, and as in Assam formerly, that immediately on leaving the village cultivation you plunged at once into forest.

My party was not so numerous as I could have wished. The Minister, Bularam Singh, accompanied me, but the nine hundred men all told, that I had asked for, were not there, and the supply of provisions was scanty. I made all my escort take ten days’ food per man, with orders not to touch it, without my direct permission, and I procured supplies wherever I could, as we went along. I also took a large supply of money.

As Bularam Singh was holding the appointment formerly held by Thangal, he had not the knowledge to help him in all petty details that the other would have had. However, realising more keenly than ever from my experience at the relief of Kohima, the extreme value of time, and of rapid strokes, I pushed on at all hazards, trusting to have my numbers made up.

I had a few first-rate Manipuri officers with me, and my old orderlies, Sowpa, Thutot, and Sundha. I took my excellent hospital assistant, Lachman Parshad, and my Manipuri secretary and interpreter, Chumder Singh, and most of my old chuprassies, who were invaluable. My head clerk, Rusni Lall Coondoo, was unfortunately on leave, marrying his daughter, and I greatly missed him.

On the morning of December 24th, we started from Mamo, determined to reach Kendat next day, though the Burmese said it was absolutely impossible to do it. I had with me my escort of fifty men of the 4th B.I., and between three hundred and four hundred Manipuris, the Kukis not having arrived. The old road had been disused, and our path was a perfect zigzag. We halted long after sunset at Pendowa on a small stream, the Nunparoo. The mountain gun did not arrive, and half our force was not up till midnight. When all the coolies had arrived, I told them that if we reached Kendat next evening, they should have buffalo to eat.

The country through which we had passed was not naturally a difficult one, but there had been no attempt to make it good, and in places it was very bad, all the more so from the unnecessary number of times that we crossed the same river. I was much interested to see large numbers of bullock carts in the villages, such not being used in Manipur.

Next morning, we started early, and soon began to ascend the Ungocking hills. This seemed endless, one range succeeded another, here and there we saw coal cropping out of the hillside. After about 12.30 P.M., the path was alternately along the bed of a stream and over high ridges, one of those meaningless, winding roads that seem made expressly to irritate people with no time to spare. At last, in the far distance, we saw a scarped hill, that was said to be close to Kendat, and cheered by the sight, we pressed on, but it was hours before we reached the goal. About 4 P.M., I met a Burmese, who spoke Hindoostani, and gave me a letter from Mr. Morgan, telling me that he and his party were all well, and earnestly longing for our arrival. The man told me that he was the “HathÉe Jemadar,” i.e., the man in charge of the elephants, and he accompanied us.

At last, just after sunset we reached the Chindwin river, even then, in the dry season, six hundred yards wide. We gave a loud cheer and hoisted the Union Jack; and the “HathÉe Jemadar” went over to tell the Europeans we had come to save, of our arrival. All my escort and most of the Manipuris marched in with me; every man had done his best and hearty were the congratulations that passed between us.

We had marched sixty-five miles over a terribly rough country, the last thirty being quite impassable for even laden mules, in thirty hours. A havildar of the 4th said, “Sahib, is not our march one of the greatest on record?” I told him that it was. It was pleasant to think that we had arrived on Christmas Day. How little my children in England realised the way I was employed.

In less than an hour Mr. Morgan, who had seen our arrival, came over accompanied by Messrs. Ruckstuhl and Bretto, his subordinates, all dressed in Burmese costume, everything they had having been plundered in the Woon’s absence. Mr. Morgan brought over a message from the Woon to me, saying that he submitted to my authority, and would come over to-morrow, and tender his formal submission.

Next day he appeared with Mr. Morgan and made his submission. He was a dignified old man, with a pleasant face expressive of much character. I thanked him on behalf of Government for his services in protecting British subjects, and told him that, while assuming charge of the country on the part of the British Government, I wished him to remain in office, and conduct the administration pending definite instructions. I told him that I expected him to maintain order, and quiet down the country, and promised him any assistance which he might require to aid him in the endeavour.

After this, I set to work to secure supplies with Mr. Morgan’s aid, so as to be ready for any emergency, and then crossed the river and called on the Woon and inspected the stockade, a huge enclosure, 420 yards long and 163 wide, with a wall of solid teak logs, 18 feet high, and none less than a foot square, with strong heavy gates. I returned to my camp before nightfall, and the mountain gun arrived under the escort of Gour Duan Subadar. Next day, I heard that the Mengin Woon had absconded, finding his position untenable.

Had I had a trained levy at my disposal, as would have been the case had my advice been followed, I could have easily sent a force to occupy Mengin, and might indeed have marched to Mandalay. As it was, commanding only irregulars, my position was one of daily anxiety.

The site of Kendat was very picturesque, situated on the high left bank of the Chindwin, up and down which a view of many miles is obtained, the reach being there a long one. The stockade contained the greater part of the official residences, and a good proportion of the inhabitants, but there were many houses outside, and temples and phoongyes’ residences. Below the town was a large Manipuri village, inhabited by the descendants of captives taken in the war of 1819–25.

In the rainy season, when the Chindwin is at its height, and 1200 yards wide, with the long ranges of the Manipuri Hills in the background, the view is said to be very beautiful. For many miles round Kendat, to the east of the Chindwin, the country is flat, but studded here and there with strange-looking hills with scarped sides, that rise abruptly out of the plains, calling to mind the hill-forests of Central India. Kendat was well supplied with boats, many of them being most elaborately carved.

It was a great misfortune that none of the men of my escort understood the management of boats, a most useful accomplishment on the eastern side of India, where rivers abound, and one in which the men of the old Assam regiments used to be proficient.