On the whole, it became evident before the middle of 1888 that the police were getting a hold of the province and that no danger had been incurred by reducing the military garrison and bringing the troops into quarters. We had still to rely on the assistance of the soldiers in work that belonged more properly to the police.
Hence in Sagaing, Magwè, the Chindwin district, and some other places where the insurgents showed special activity, I was compelled in some cases to ask for aid. If it was sought unwillingly, it was given most readily by the Major-General commanding, and was invaluable. The civil administration was not yet able to stand alone. It was not so much the rank and file but the many British officers, keen and experienced, whose withdrawal was felt; for it will be remembered each police battalion had at the most two British officers, while very few districts had an area of less than three thousand square miles.
As an example of the invaluable aid rendered by the soldiers, two of the most noted leaders on the Ava side, Shwè Yan and Bo Tok, who had been the scourge of the country since the annexation, fell to parties of British Infantry. Bo Tok was killed by Mounted Infantry of the Rifle Brigade led by Major Sir Bartle Frere, and a few months later, Lieutenant Minogue, with some Mounted Infantry of the Royal Munster Fusiliers, ran down Shwè Yan. The deaths of these two men, who kept the borders of Ava, Myingyan, and Kyauksè in a ferment, enabled the civil power to bring this country into order in a short time.
The military police, however, took their full share of work. A man who had given endless trouble to the troops since the annexation and made his lair on the east side of the Kyauksè district was the Setkya leader. He was attacked by the Kyauksè military police under Captain Gastrell, Commandant of the Mandalay battalion, and his band dispersed. The Setkya escaped, but he was caught and delivered up by the Shan Sawbwa of Lawksawk. After his defeats on former occasions he had found a safe refuge in the Shan hills. The Shan leaders were now our loyal subjects, and the Setkya's career came to an end.
CHAPTER XI
BURMA BECOMES A FRONTIER PROVINCE
In another direction there was a still greater change than the substitution of police for troops. From being an isolated administration hardly able to look up from our own affairs, and obliged to work in detail, district by district, to establish a beginning of order, Burma was rapidly becoming a frontier province, with daily extending boundaries. I was occupied in this year with framing the administration of the Shan States, which had been visited by Mr. Hildebrand and Mr. Hugh Daly,[26] with our relations to Eastern Karenni, with the Trans-Salween States and the Siamese claims on that border. The distant region to the north of Bhamo had been occupied for the first time, and it was becoming evident that we should have to reckon with the Kachins in the north and north-east; while the eastern frontier of Upper Burma resting up against the great mass of mountains which stretch down from Manipur to the Bay of Bengal, was beginning to demand attention.
There had been hitherto no leisure and no need to give much thought to the tribes of Chins and others inhabiting these hills. It had been suggested at an early period that Burma should send a party through the Chin country to meet another from the Bengal side, with the design of opening up communication from east to west and making a through road.