“The boats had, in the meantime, been attacked, but were bravely defended; and the troops, pushing on, soon made their way unexpectedly into the city. Before the Burmese were aware what we were about, we stormed the great pagoda, which we soon carried, and the city was ours, with the loss of one man killed and three wounded. After blowing up the fortifications, as we had not troops enough to hold the place, we returned to Rangoon.
“After this we had a good deal of boat-work, cruising along the banks of the rivers, and dislodging the enemy, who often appeared in some force, for the purpose of trying to stop the provision-boats which came down to supply the fleet with grub. Sometimes we landed and drove the fellows far away into the country. Although they were ready enough to fire at us from a distance, they never liked the look of our whiskers,” whereat there was a general laugh.
“Whose whiskers, Tom?” asked Archie.
“Well, those of the sogers and bluejackets, of course,” said Tom; “how could they tell that I hadn’t a pair too?”
“Well, go on, Rogers,” cried several voices; “what did you do next?”
“There was another large place,” he resumed, “called Prome, high up the river, which it was considered important to take, as it formed the chief defence of the capital. Captain Tarleton was, therefore, ordered to proceed up the Irrawaddy in the Medusa, with three other steamers, of one of which my brother Jack had the command. Away we steamed for some distance, without any of the enemy daring to show their faces. We had, as you will understand, already put them all to flight. At length, at a place with a precious hard name, Kononghee, about twenty-five miles below Prome, we came in sight of a large body of men collected on the banks. We threw a shell into their midst, as a hint to them to be off, instead of which they began firing away at us with musketry and several heavy guns. We returned the compliment pretty briskly, till they, getting the worst of it, as usual, showed their discretion by scampering off, and not stopping till they thought our shot would not reach them.
“As we were in a hurry to be at Prome, we didn’t stop till they came back, but steamed on till sunset, when we anchored off the town of Meaoung. We found that the river divided just ahead of us into two streams, the western and deepest being the only navigable channel for the greater part of the year. We had arrived, however, at a time when the eastern channel had plenty of water in it, as we learned from the pilots. This was a fortunate circumstance, as you shall hear. When we got near the western channel, we found an immensely strong fort at the end of a range of hills which completely overlooked the river, garrisoned by a force of not less than ten thousand men, under a certain General Bundoolah, the most celebrated warrior in the Burmese army, so the pilots told us. Though his troops were only armed with matchlocks, and might have been bad shots, they would have committed a good deal of mischief by peppering down on our decks; not to speak of what the heavy guns might have done, placed in a position to rake us as we steamed up. Had it been necessary, I have no doubt Captain Tarleton would have stood on; but as there was no object in running the risk if it could be avoided, just as we came close to the works, and the enemy had begun to pepper us, he put his helm to port, and, greatly to their disappointment, steered away up the eastern channel, where not one of their shot could reach us. We kept the lead going, every moment fearing that we might get aground, when we should have been somewhat in a mess. We never had less than two fathoms of water, and sometimes more, so that we got through without accident; and by steaming on all night, the next morning at daylight came off Prome.
“At the south end of the city we made out four heavy guns, but the troops, every man Jack of them, had gone off with General Bundoolah, and left not one behind to fight them. We therefore brought up abreast of the spot, and hove them off, spiking the iron guns, and carrying the brass ones on board, twenty-three in all. Higher up we found between twenty and thirty more.
“This done, we again got up steam, and paddled ten miles higher. We were now within four days’ steaming of Ava, with a broad, deep river, easy of navigation, before us. We all hoped that the commodore would push on and capture the capital. As far as we saw, there was nothing to prevent him, but the orders he had received were simply to survey the river as high as Prome, and then to return; so of course he had to obey them. Why he had not been given discretionary powers to proceed farther, I don’t know. A golden opportunity was lost of catching the King of Ava by the nose, for we had so nimbly doubled on old Bundoolah that the chances were we should not have met with the slightest opposition. You may fancy, therefore, our disappointment when the order was received to ‘’bout ship,’ and run down the stream again. But it couldn’t be helped—orders are orders—it wasn’t the fault of our gallant commodore.
“After holding Prome four-and-twenty hours, we evacuated the town, and soon got back into the shallow channel up which we had come. On getting into the main stream, we caught sight of General Bundoolah’s army, some of the troops on shore, some in boats crossing the river, evidently with the intention of following us along the banks. I don’t suppose they much liked our looks, for they evidently didn’t expect to see us so soon. Steaming on, we quickly got up to them, and opened with shot and shell, both on the boats and on the dark-skinned troops which, crowded together, covered the shore. You may fancy what fearful havoc and confusion our shells created among the masses of human beings. Many of the boats were sunk, and the people in the others, finding escape impossible, hauled down their flags, and made signs that they surrendered. It was calculated that we captured or sunk forty or fifty boats. Among them was the old general’s state barge and several large war