le are gathered is Henzawaddy, only some fifteen
miles further on.

"You were right; your people have not been driven out. A large
number of our troops are down near Rangoon but, in the fighting
that has taken place, we have gained no advantage. Your people
marched out at the end of May, carried a stockade; and advanced to
Joazoang, and attacked some villages defended by stockades and
carried them, after having killed a hundred of our men. Then a
great stockade on a hill near the river, three miles from
Rangoon--which our people thought could not be taken, so strongly
was it protected--was attacked. The guns of your people made a
great gap in a stockade a mile in front of it. Two hundred men were
killed, and also the commander.

"Then your people marched on to the great stockade at Kemmendine.
Your troops, when they got there, saw how strong it was and were
afraid to attack it. They lay down all night, close to it; and we
thought we should destroy them, all when they attacked in the
morning; but their ships that had come up with them opened fire, at
daybreak. As the stockades were hidden from the sight of those on
the river, we had thought that the ships could do nothing; but they
shot great balls up into the air, and they came down inside the
stockade, where they burst with an explosion like the noise of a
big gun; and killed so many that the troops could not remain under
so terrible a fire, and went away, leaving it to your people to
enter the stockade, without fighting."

Chapter 6: Among Friends.

"It certainly seems to me," Stanley said, when he heard the
Burman's account of the state of things below, "that it will not be
possible for us to go any further, by water."

"It would be very dangerous," Meinik said. "It is certain that all
the men in this part of the country have been obliged to go with
the army and, even were we both natives, and had no special reason
for avoiding being questioned, we should be liable to be seized and
executed at once, for having disregarded the orders to join the
army. Assuredly we cannot pass down farther in our boat, but must
take to the land. I should say that we had best get spears and
shields, and join some newly-arrived party."

"But you forget that, though my disguise as a native is good enough
to mislead anyone passing us on the road, or in the dusk after
sunset, I should certainly attract attention if travelling with
them, by day."

"I forgot that. I have grow