The action at Chinbyit cost us much. Lord Dufferin wrote: "It is too distressing to think that so slight an affair should have cost us the lives of two valuable officers." Their lives were not thrown away. The loss inflicted on the enemy was severe, and the death of the Bayingan prince put an end to a troublesome organization.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] The white umbrella is a token of royalty.
[23] Wm. Thomson Morison, C.S.I., member of Executive Council of the Governor of Bombay.
[24] Mr. Carter records in the official diary of his work in Pagyi with Colonel Symons, under date 27th of November, 1887: "At Chinbyit visited scene of late fight. The villagers pointed out the skeleton of the Bayengan. The body had been left where it had fallen, a few bushes and stones being placed over it to keep off dogs and vultures."
CHAPTER IX
TROUBLE WITH THE WUNTHO SAWBWA
I left Rangoon on the 30th of November, after arranging the measures necessary for commencing the disarmament of the province at the beginning of the new year. There were two districts in Lower Burma giving trouble at that time—Tharrawaddy in the Pegu Division and Thayetmyo. Tharrawaddy has always been a sore spot.[25] In the early part of 1889 it was brought into a more orderly state; but towards the end of the year, owing in a great measure to the action of the local officers in issuing licences for firearms to the villagers, the gangs were able to obtain weapons, and crime increased to such a degree that strenuous measures had to be adopted.
I went to Thayetmyo, and there met the local officers and heard what account they had to give. They reported the remaining gangs to be small. Parties of Mounted Infantry, with active police and civil officers, were told off to work both sides of the river, and a great improvement was effected in a few months.