re invariably carried by
escalade. Some of them are built of bamboos, running from a foot to two
feet in diameter. These are equally strong, with the peculiarity that
if you fire cannon at them the bamboos yield, admit the shot, and then
close again. If these stockades are not close to the river side, they
usually have a deep ditch round them, and are further protected by what
was more serious to us than the escalading, which were abbatis of
pointed bamboos, stuck in a slanting direction in the ground. The
slight wounds made by these bamboos brought on lock-jaw, and too often
terminated fatally. In the attacks upon us at Rangoon they made their
approaches with some degree of military skill, throwing up trenches as
they advanced. Their fire-rafts on such a rapid river were also
formidable. They have wells of petroleum up the country: their rafts
were very large, and on them, here and there, were placed old canoes
filled with this inflammable matter. When on fire, it blazed as high as
our maintop, throwing out flames, heat, and stink quite enough to drive
any one away.

I have mentioned their mode of warfare and their deficiencies, to prove
that if the Burmahs had been as well provided with every species of arms
equal to our own, the country would not have been so soon subjugated as
it was. Their system of defence was good, their bravery was undoubted,
but they had no effective weapons. I strongly suspect that they will,
now that they have been taught their inferiority, use every means to
obtain them; and if so, they will really become a formidable nation. As
one proof of their courage, I will mention, that at every stockade there
is a look-out man, perched on a sort of pole, about ten feet or more
clear of the upper part of the stockade, in a situation completely
exposed. I have often observed these men, and it was not till the
cannonade had fairly commenced on both sides, that they came down, and
when they did, it was without hurry; indeed, I may say, in a most
leisurely and indifferent manner. Of their invulnerables and their
antics I have already spoken.

In countries governed despotically, life is not so much valued as it is
in others. The very knowledge that it may be taken in a moment at the
will of the rulers, renders even the cowardly comparatively indifferent.
Having been accustomed from our earliest years to anticipate an event,
when it actually arrives we meet it with composure and indifference.