distance from it of about two miles and a half, in shape resembling an inverted speaking-trumpet, three hundred and thirty-eight feet in height, and surmounted by a cap made of brass, forty-five feet high, and the whole richly gilded. This pagoda, the key of the British position, was occupied by a battalion of Europeans; the smaller pagodas, convents, and pilgrims' houses on the two roads between it and Rangoon, afforded shelter for detachments of troops; and the village of Puzendown, where the Pegu and Rangoon rivers meet, and Kemmendine, for the protection of the transports against the enemy's fire-rafts, completed the position of the invading army, On the 1st of July large bodies of the enemy issued from the jungle to the right, and in front of the Great Pagoda, the main body moving towards Rangoon, but detaching a column to the left, which set fire to the village of Puzendown. The main body advanced within half a mile of Rangoon; but two field-pieces, served with grape and shrapnel, checked their advance at the same moment the forty-third Madras native infantry drove their columns from the hill, and compelled them to seek for safety in a rapid retreat. The news of this defeat no sooner reached Ava, than the unfortunate Sykia was recalled in disgrace, and Soomba Wongee (the second minister), who had just arrived with considerable reinforcements, assumed the chief command of the army of the province of Rangoon. This general, convinced from the ill success of his predecessors, that his troops were not in a state to cope with the British in the field, stockaded his army at a place called Kummeroot, about five miles beyond the Great Pagoda, and fortified a commanding point a little above Kemmendine, in communication with his stockaded camp, which afforded an admirable situation for the construction of fire-rafts-by the judicious employment of which he contemplated the destruction of our shipping. From this point to Kummeroot, stockades and other defences had been erected, into which the naval force under Captain Marryat soon made practicable breaches, and the whole were carried with considerable slaughter of the enemy, by detachments of his Majesty's forty-first and seventeenth Madras native infantry. The operations of the. little land column, under Brigadier-general'M‘Bean, against Kummeroot, were equally successful. Unprovided with guns, the Brigadier-general at once formed his troops for the assault, and storming-parties from his Majesty's thirteenth, thirty-eighth, and eighty-ninth regiments, rapidly advanced to escalade. The principal work in the centre of the enemy's line was composed of three distinct stockades, one within another, in the interior one of which, Soomba Wongee, the Burmese commander-in-chief, had established his head-quarters, secure in the imagined strength of his position, position, and in the valour of his men." He was sitting down to dinner when the approach of the British troops was first announced to him; and merely directing his chiefs to proceed to their posts, and "drive the audacious strangers away," the haughty Wongee, without seeming to pay more attention to the report, was proceeding with his forenoon repast, when the rapid musketry of the assailants at length convinced him that the utmost courage and exertion would be required to save him from efeat, disgrace, and probably from the vengeance of his sovereign. Urged by these considerations, Soomba Wongee, contrary to the ordinary custom of Burmese commanders, placed himself at the head of his retreating troops, and encouraged them, by his voice and his example, to offer a steady resistance to their advancing foes. His two first lines, already routed with dreadful slaughter, were crowding into the centre stockade, followed by the British soldiers, whose unremitting and destructive fire upon the confused and penned-up mass rendered all the exertions of their chiefs to restore any degree of order fruitless and unavailing. Wongees and Woondocks, officers and men indiscriminately mixed together, unable to fly, charged the British soldiers with the fury of despair, but their efforts and resistance only tended to augment their losses and complete their final rout. 'Soomba Wongee, a Woondock, and several other chiefs of rank, with eight hundred men, were killed upon the spot, and the jungle and villages in the neighbourhood were filled with the unhappy wretches who were wounded, and left to die, for want of food and care.'—p. 52-54. It might have been supposed that the ease and celerity with which this little army had, in one day, captured ten stockades, provided with thirty pieces of artillery, and garrisoned with such superior numbers, would have convinced the Burmese leaders that their strongest fortifications insured no protection against such assailants; but though they refrained from the offensive for some time, no overture was made for a cessation of hostilities. In the captured stockades were found several wounded Burmese, who were brought into the British hospitals, but most of them died. From these they were informed that, on the day after the battle, parties of their countrymen visited the stockades, for the purpose of collecting such muskets, balls, and other weapons, as might have been left behind; that they represented the loss of their army as immense, and that the villages for many leagues behind were crowded with their wounded: they said that food and water were left with the wounded men; but, as their wounds were considered mortal, no offer of further aid was made, nor desire of removal expressed. In fact, it was evident that the unhappy sufferer, in such cases, is generally left by these inhuman people to his fate; and this he meets with fortitude and resignation: if at any time pain compels him to solicit aid, it is only that a speedy period may be put to his sufferings. Towards Towards the end of July, by means of the sudden and unexpected movement of the steam-boat and flotilla, and small parties of troops, a few families, who had been driven to the villages up the numerous creeks at no great distance from Rangoon, were released from their guards, and most gladly took the opportunity of proceeding to the city; and to their report of the kind treatment they met with, the British army was subsequently indebted for the return of the great body of the people, whose services and exertions were of material importance to us in the ensuing campaign. The Wongee having failed to drive back the foreigners into the sea, the king next sent down his two brothers, the Princes of Tonghoo and Surrawaddy, with a whole host of astrologers, and a corps of Invulnerables, to join the army, and to superintend the operations of the war. The first of these princes established his head-quarters at Pegu, the second at Donabew, a place of great strength about sixty miles to the northward of Rangoon. The Burmese, like their more polished neighbours of China, are in the constant habit of consulting the Stargazers on undertaking every affair of great moment: if their advice proves favourable, it is so much gain to the credit side of astrology; if the prediction does not correspond with the event, the stars are more in fault than they.' It is a superstition of very ancient standing in the East, from whence all the stores of the magic art and the casting of nativities passed into the western world. If the decision of these lunatics (for the moon is the ruling planet in the Burmese horoscope) had the power of inspiring their troops with confidence, the publicity that was given to their responses had also the effect of fully preparing our troops for the intended attack. The corps of Invulnerables consists of several thousand men, divided into classes of warriors, of whom a select band are entitled to the appellation of the King's Invulnerables.' They are distinguished by the short cut of their hair, and the peculiar manner in which they are tatooed, having the figures of elephants, tigers, and a great variety of ferocious animals indelibly, and even beautifully, marked upon their arms and legs; but to the soldiers they were best known by having bits of gold, silver, and sometimes precious stones, in their arms, probably introduced under the skin at an early age. These men are considered by their countrymen as invulnerable; and from the foolish and absurd exposure of their persons to the fire of an enemy, they are either impressed with the same opinion, or find it necessary to show a marked contempt for danger in support of their pretensions. In all the stockades and defences of the enemy, one or two of these heroes were generally found, whose duty it was to exhibit the war-dance of defiance upon the most exposed part of their defences, infusing infusing courage and enthusiasm into the minds of their comrades, and affording much amusement to their enemies. The infatuated wretches, under the excitement of opium, too frequently continued the ludicrous exhibition, till they afforded convincing proof of the value of their claims to the title they assume.'-pp. 64, 65. When these princes, sages, and warriors had settled the day of the moon the most propitious for making the attack, of which due notice was received by Sir Archibald Campbell, the intermediate time afforded the General an opportunity to detach a corps, accompanied by Captain Marryat, of his Majesty's ship Larne, to clear the rivers, creeks, and stockades, of parties of the enemy, which were hovering about and harassing our troops on the eastern and south-eastern sides of Rangoon. The operations in these quarters were completely successful. After this, several weeks past away, in which the enemy were constantly dislodged from their posts as speedily as they took them up, till at length the 30th August arrived, the night of the first lucky moon prognosticated to the Prince of Surrawaddy, when a body of the King's Invulnerables had volunteered to seize the Great Shoedagon Pagoda, and thus afford the princes and the sages the opportunity of celebrating the usual annual festival in that sacred place. The attempt was accordingly made at midnight, when these infatuated men, armed with swords and muskets, rushed forward in a compact body from the jungle under the pagoda. The moon was gone down, and the night was so dark that they could only be distinguished by a few glimmering lanterns in their front; but the noise and clamour of their imprecations upon the impious strangers who had got possession of the holy place proved their numbers to be very great. · ; At length vivid flashes, followed by the cannon's thundering peals, broke from the silent ramparts of the British post, stilling the tumult of the advancing mass, while showers of grape and successive vollies of musketry fell with dreadful havoc among their crowded ranks, against which the imaginary shield of self-deceit and imposition was found of no avail, leaving the unfortunate Invulnerables scarcely a chance between destruction and inglorious flight. Nor did they hesitate long upon the alternative; a few devoted enthusiasts may have despised to fly, but as they all belonged to the same highfavoured caste, and had brought none of their less-favoured countrymen to witness their disgrace, the great body of them soon sought for safety in the jungle, where they, no doubt, invented a plausible account of their night's adventure, which, however effectual it may have proved in saving their credit, had also the good effect to us of preventing them in future from volunteering upon such desperate services, and contributed, in some degree, to protect the troops from being so frequently deprived of their night's rest.'-pp. 70, 71. Thus Thus wongees and princes, astrologers and invulnerables, were routed and dispersed here, as every where else, by our little army of invincibles. But an enemy, far more to be dreaded than the Burmese, had now made its way among our troops. The rains, which had fallen the last three months, continued during the whole of September, and sickness had arrived at an alarming height. The epidemic fever, so prevalent in India, left those attacked by it in a most deplorable state of debility; provisions of all kinds were so scarce, and the men discharged from the hospitals so frequently indulged themselves with pine-apples, limes, and other fruits, which abound in the woods about Rangoon, as to bring on dysentery, which, in their exhausted state, proved fatal to vast numbers. Those who still continued to do duty, emaciated and reduced, could with difficulty crawl about; and for several months the sickness had continued to increase, until scarcely three thousand soldiers were left to guard the lines. At length, on the recommendation of the medical staff, numbers of invalids were sent to Mergui and Tavoy, on the sea-coast, now in our possession, where those who had remained for months in a debilitated state at Rangoon were restored rapidly to full health and vigour. At The discomfiture and disgrace which had hitherto attended all attempts to drive the invaders into the sea, produced no pacific disposition on the part of his Burmese Majesty; he, on the contrary, now turned his eyes to the man who, at the head of his veteran legions, had been ordered to sack Calcutta, and lead the governor-general in golden fetters to Umerapoora ;Maha Bandoola was recalled from Arracan to the Irrawaddy. the end of August he accordingly broke up from Ramoo, recrossed the mountains of Arracan, marching two hundred miles through insalubrious jungles and pestilential marshes, at a season of the year when none but Burmans could have kept the field for a week. Bandoola had, besides, arms of the sea, rivers, and mountain-torrents to oppose his progress at every step; but, the Burman,' says Major Snodgrass, half amphibious in his nature, takes the water without fear or reluctance; seldom encumbered with commissariat or equipage of any kind, and carrying a fortnight's rice in a bag slung across his shoulders, he is at all times ready to move at the first summons of his chiefs.' On the present occasion, Bandoola and his army disappeared from Ramoo in the course of one night, leaving not a sick man behind, nor a trace of the route they had taken. This new army, under the most celebrated and experienced commander in the empire, was expected to join the rest of the troops and the new levies at Donabew in November, by which time fortunately a sensible |