A Burmese wonderland; a tale of travel in Lower and ... - Khamkoo

170 A BURMESE WONDERLAND.
his own agents into Rangoon, who, on the 12th December
managed to bum down half the town. The Magazines
were only saved by luck. With a trifle of fortune
Bandula might well have equalized his losses.
The British, however, were in no position to follow.
Bandula kept them starved and isolated. On the 13th
of February the British transport crawled forth at the
rate of four, five and six miles a day. " Too much
credit cannot be given to Bandula and his chiefs, for
the secrecy they maintained and enforced, relative
to their plans, arrangements and movements at the
present juncture. The state of espionage and terror
under which the peasantry are kept renders them
extremely circumspect The desertion of the
towns and villages in our route was obviously a systematical
arrangement of the Burman chiefs
The Prince of Sarrawaddy, burning and laying waste the
villages in their route, drove thousands of helpless,
harmless people from their homes to the woods
Even Russia, in her memorable resistance to the armies
of Napoleon, did not ofEer the invading host such
a continued scene of desolation. Neither man nor beast
escaped the retiring columns : and heaps of ashes, with
groups of hungry, how^ling dogs, alone indicated where
villages had been."
The Flotilla's attack on the stockades at Danubyu
failed. The land-column turned to it, arriving before
the position on about 25th March. The stockade
was strong, but Bandula's army was probably not more