received your first note, I
thought it next door to madness for you to try to get your cousin,
badly wounded as you knew him to be, from the hands of the Burmese.
It is not an easy thing to get any man out of prison but, when the
man was unable to help himself, it seemed well-nigh impossible; and
I was greatly afraid that, instead of saving his life, you would
lose your own. Of course, the fact that you had successfully
traversed the country before was strongly in your favour; but then
you were unencumbered, and the two things were, therefore, not to
be compared with each other. I shall, of course, put you in orders
tomorrow as having performed a singularly gallant action, in
rescuing Lieutenant Brooke of the 47th and a sowar from their
captivity, by the Burmese, in a prison at Toungoo.

"You have arrived just in time for, after endeavouring to fool us
for the past three months, by negotiations never meant to come to
anything, the enemy are now advancing in great force, and are
within a few miles of the town. So we are likely to have hot work
of it for from all accounts, they have got nearly as large an army
together as Bandoola had. I don't know whether they have learned
anything from his misfortunes, but I am bound to say that the court
does not seem to have taken the lesson, in the slightest degree, to
heart; and their arrogance is just as insufferable as it was before
a shot was fired."

Stanley learnt that there had already been one fight. The enemy were
advancing in three columns. Their right--consisting of 15,000 men,
commanded by Sudda Woon--had crossed the Irrawaddy, and was marching
down the other bank; with the apparent object of recrossing, below
Prome, and cutting the British line of communication. The centre--from
25,000 to 30,000 strong, commanded by the Kee Wongee--was coming down
the left bank of the river, accompanied by a great fleet of war boats.
The left division--15,000 strong, led by an old and experienced general,
Maha Nemiow--was moving parallel with the others, about ten miles distant
from the centre, but separated from it by a thick and impenetrable
forest. A reserve of 10,000 men, commanded by the king's half-brother,
occupied a strongly fortified post at Melloon. In addition to these, a
large force was gathered near Pegu, and threatened an attack upon Rangoon.

On the 10th of November, a fortnight before Stanley's return, two
brigades of native infantry--under Colonel M'Dowall--had march