T was in 1852, shortly after the bom

IT

bardment of Rangoon, and while the British forces, under Gen. Godwin, were still occupying that place, that a message came down from the Woon, or head man, of the friendly people who inhabited the interior town of Pegu, stating that they had been attacked by a superior force of Burmese, driven from their homes, and compelled to take refuge in the jungle. The Peguans are naturally a brave race, entertaining a bitter hereditary hatred for the aggressive Burmese, always armed against them, always warring with them on continually recurring pretexts, and always disposed to join with any force hostile to them. They, therefore, informed the general, that if he would send a small party of British troops to their aid they would attack and retake the place. Meantime their families were in the jungle suffering great privation and exposure, their households scattered, and their property destroyed.

The town of Pegu-city of the great pagoda Shway-Madoo, the Golden Supreme-lies in a most beautiful valley, one of the very few in that country which are watered throughout the dry season, and the one upon which the people depend, for the most part, for their supplies of rice.

Accordingly the general determined to send a force to aid these poor people, and ordered the steamer to which I was attached, the Phlegethon, to repair to VOL. VII.-36

the place immediately, with-in addition to her own crew, which consisted of two hundred and thirty or forty men-a detachment of Bengal (Sepoy) rifles, numbering about a hundred and fifty, a small party of marines from the frigate Fox (Commodore Lambert's flag-ship), and a company of sappers and miners, in case of the necessity arising of throwing up field-works, should we not succeed in taking the town in the first assault.

One morning, about five o'clock, when we were within twenty or twenty-five miles of Pegu, the steamer got aground and stuck fast. Finding that there was no prospect of getting any nearer with her, the river being very low, it was determined to send the force up in the boats. The steamer not being large enough to hold all the men, we had been towing astern the launch and two cutters of the Fox, filled with sailors and marines; and these, with our own three cutters, were sufficient to convey our men to the attack. We started soon after day-break, and pulled up between the high banks of the river, making our way past the Burmese villages that at short intervals occupied the shores-the men all well armed, and three surgeons, of whom I was one, in the boats; we were penetrating a country new to us, and our expedition was of course novel and startling to the natives, filling them with all the apprehensions of war, and inspiring them with that superstitious horror which a primitive people have of

the approach of strangers of a different race and color, and with whose name is associated everything that is terrible.

We were all on the alert, expecting an attack every moment, as we went up with the flood-tide, which runs in the Pegu like a mill-race. Soon we began to hear the native war-gongs beating in every direction; and the distant cry of warriors giving the alarm-a guttural, monotonous hoo-hoo-was bayed on every side.

This lugubrious warning was more like the baying of countless dogs than any other civilized noise, and we knew that its object was to gather a force to intercept us, or, at all events, to strengthen the defense of the town of Pegu. Occa sionally, however, we passed a Karien village where the inhabitants were friendly. Only women, and children, and old men were left in these places, and they saluted us joyfully with shouts and waving of white cloths, dancing and running down to the river bank in crowds, pointing up the stream, and hurrying us on to the town, which they hoped we would take. The higher up we got, the louder grew the alarm; the gongs became as innumerable as the voices of runners and scouts carrying on the warning, and the whole produced a melancholy harmony, now like the sighing of the wind, now like the dying away of thunder.

All this time we were exposed to the intensest heat of a tropical sun, a heat such as is experienced nowhere but in Burmah; for, whatever may be the indications of the thermometer, heat is not felt in any other spot on earth as it is in the low, flat lands along the delta of the Irawaddy. Thermometrically it may not be so great, but Burmese heat has a peculiarly depressing effect; it makes you faint; it seems to steam and stew your head, and you find yourself bending under it as under a great and growing weight. We had no awnings over the boats, and most of us were dressed in thick cloth uniform. I wore a heavy cloth navy cap-the regulation cap of the Company-an undress blue cloth frock-coat, trowsers of the same material, and, in a belt at my waist, a sword and a pair of heavy ship's pistols. Very soon after the sun rose I had begun to experience the wilting influence of his rays, and, as he mounted higher and higher, rapidly acquiring strength, I was fast becoming

sick. At first I was seized with a slight fit of vomiting; then my mind became confused. For a moment I would forget where I was, but only for a moment; the next I would recover my recollection. I had a sense of dried peas with hot water poured upon them, swelling in my skull; I became violently excited, raved, said I don't know what to the men around me, seized one, thinking he was about to attack me--and then fell over on my face in the bottom of the boat-coup de soleil!

How long I remained insensible I have never known; but my first consciousness was of lying over the side of the boat, with a sailor dipping up water in his hat and pouring it over my head. My clothes were open, my dress loosened as much as possible, and saturated with water. I recognized some of the officers, particularly an assistant-surgeon of the 18th Royal Irish, my intimate friend, and was more or less conscious, from that time, that I was in a remote spot, and on a dangerous expedition, although I did not recollect the nature of the enterprise nor even the name of the country. In recognizing the officers, I could not recall their connection with the events then recurring. I heard the beating of the tomtoms along the land; I heard the same multitudinous hoo-hooing, baying, wailing, and it filled me with irrepressible horror at times, while at others it excited me to madness. By degrees I became more quiet, and, as soon as it was safe to do so, I was removed from the cutter to a large Burmese rice-boat, housed over with mats and capable of containing from a hundred to a hundred and fifty persons. This floating house had windows and doors, and had been fitted up with hospital traps of every sort-a complete surgeon's and apothecary's outfit. Here I was laid upon a litter-dhoolee, as it is called in India - stripped, and water poured on me as before, by the bucketful, especially over my head and

breast. The dhoolee was stretched in the middle of the boat, between the doors and windows. Occasionally, I relapsed into insensibility, but under the medical treatment, which was vigorous and pertinacious, I recovered sufficiently, every now and then, to recognize the faces and voices of the two medical officers who had kindly remained in charge of me, as well as the dhoolee-bearers-half-naked Hin

doos, who belonged to the hospital department and a cabin-boy of the frigate Fox, a handsome, spirited little fellow of fourteen or thereabouts, who had been permitted to accompany us for the purpose of witnessing an action. I had scarcely recovered my consciousness sufficiently to understand where I was and what had happened, when a message arrived from Capt. Tarletongreat-grandson, by-the-by, of the troublesome Tarleton of our Revolutionary war, and a dashing leader--commanding these medical officers to join immediately their respective detachments, and to leave me in the best care they could provide. Accordingly, they asked me whether they could safely leave me alone, relying upon my sense and experience to do that for myself which there would be no one to do for me in their absence. I urged them to go.

Shortly after they left-it seemed to me not more than half an hour-the little boy, of whom I have spoken, approached the side of the dhoolee, and, while bathing me with a sponge, giving me water to drink, and changing the mustard-poultices, told me where we were. He said this hospital-boat had been moored on the side opposite the town, under a high bank, where there were only jungle and the ruins of a burnt village, a few hundred yards off. He assured me that I had no cause for alarm; that we were perfectly safe; that the officers had explained to him that the boat had been moored there for safety, because there were no Burmese on that side, and that, in a very short time, they would rejoin us. My excitement was thus partially allayed, and I became comparatively calm; still, that horrible banging of gongs, mingled with the rattling of musketry-for our troops were then storming the place-and the occasional discharge of the twelvepounders we had brought up in our boats, were, at times, frightful in their effect upon me, and it was with great difficulty that I could master the impulse to leap into the water and hurry toward the scene of action. All these sounds seemed to go through and through my head. The effect of the coup de soleil on my sense of hearing was, to intensify it beyond endurance. If one of those guns had been fired close by my ear, it could scarcely have produced an effect more shocking than it did at the dis

tance of more than a mile. How long the engagement lasted, it is, of course, impossible for me, under circumstances of such confusion and even delirium, to remember; but presently there was a pause: not a gong was to be heard; that dismal slogan was no longer to be caught; the artillery and musketry were still; all was perfect silence. The dhoolee-bearers were squatting around on their haunches, and one or two of them had lighted hubble-bubbles. The boy went to the door, and, presently returning, whispered to me, seeming anxious to communicate something important; but, in my condition then, I could not understand him, and hardly gave him my attention. Then there was a stir among the Coolies-a quick expression of alarm; they laid down their hubble-bubbles, and went to the windows on the side next the bank. Immediately they rushed back in great confusion and terror, shouting, "Burmee, Burmee man; Sahib, Sahib, Burmee man!" The boy again went to the door, and, after reconnoitering, returned and informed me that a large force of Burmese were gathering on the bank over the boat; and, as he spoke, I could hear their shouts. They had come from below, probably, to assist their friends, but had taken such care to keep at a safe distance from our men, that they had blundered upon this boat in its exposed and helpless situation. There was hardly an appreciable interval between the announcement of their presence and the discharge of their muskets. The roof of the boat was quickly perforated in every direction, and bullets whistled about the bed; they struck the timbers over my head, and by my side, and, more than once, struck the bed itself. With a scream of terror, the dhoolee-bearers leapt into the water, and then I was alone with the boy. For a minute or two, there was a pause in the firing, the attention of the Burmese being distracted by the panic of the Hindoos: but it was immediately resumed, this time directed upon the swimming Coolies.

Now, remember that I was stark naked, intensely excited (except at blessed moments of insensibility), in a high state of cerebral exaltation, reckless of danger, possessed by a sort of devil resembling mania a potu in all its phenomena. The little boy, now my

only companion, preserving wonderful self-possession and calmness of demeanor, came to me, seized me with both hands, and shook me hard, as if to wake me. He cried, "Get up, sir; get up, sir; no time to lose now!" and asked me if I could swim. I answered, "Yes," he all the time dragging over my arms and legs a pair of pilot-cloth trowsers and a pea-jacket, after which he led me-almost carrying me, feeble as I was-to the side of the boat furthest from the Burmese, who, probably on hearing his exclamations, had resumed their firing, and were rapidly drilling the roof, but still afraid to come down upon the boat, perhaps suspecting an ambush.

He led me to the door, and pointed to where, some five or six hundred yards up the stream, our boats were aground, in charge of seven or eight men, under command of a midshipman. Remember, now, that all our force was engaged at the town of Pegu (but how far off, or in what direction, that lay, I knew not then); that there had been only a pause in their firing, which by this time was resumed with increased rattle of musketry and roar of cannon. Pointing to the boats, the boy asked me if I could swim so far. I replied, "Yes," and asked him if he also could. He said, "Yes." I then plunged into the river, and struck out in the direction of the boats, bidding him follow close behind me. I imagined at the time, though now I know it to have been but imagination, that I heard him leap in after me, and I continued to fancy, not only that I heard him striking out and blowing the water, as swimmers do, but that I even saw him; and I spoke to him frequently, believing him to be at my side.

The Burmese, perceiving me as I made the plunge, instantly redoubled their fire, and bullets fell thickly around me. I could hear them hiss close by my head and back, pelting the water like nuts thrown upon the surface by the handful. Fortunately, the tide was in my favor, and I swam rapidly, being at all times an expert swimmer. Under the cooling influence of the water, I seemed to recover my presence of mind, and to have the balance of my nerves restored. I became perfectly calm, unalarmed-master of myself in every respect-with more self-possession and a cooler comprehension of the circumstances surround

ing me than I had ever had before in all my life: nor can I refer all of this to other than almost supernatural influences, though, of course, something is to be attributed to the cooling agency of the water. I let my body down into the stream as low as possible, so as to expose only the back of my head, thus making my human target for the bullets of my hunters as small as I could, and as low also; for I was well aware, from precious experience acquired in a busy campaign, that they fire very high, holding the stocks of their muskets under their armpits, and not against their shoulders, as we do; besides, their fire-arms are of the most wretched description, and every man makes his own powder. Their balls, therefore, generally passed over my head, and fell into the water, a little beyond me.

I had no fear at any moment; a strange and omnipotent faith in fate took possession of me; I did not even take the trouble to make up my mind that I should escape. I literally had no idea that it was a possible thing for me to be shot then. Yet, when I had almost reached the boats, I was seized with extreme faintness-whether from the reaction of hope, inspired by the proximity of my friends, depriving me of the strength and courage of despair and rage, or from what other cause I know not; I became suddenly sick, and felt myself rapidly sinking. I could make but a few strokes more, holding up my hand, and crying for help. The smallest of the boats, our third cutter, with a solitary man in it, came to my rescue, and, just as my strength was finally failing, he dragged me out of the water. As I fell over between the seats, gasping and exhausted with the shock of relief and safety, but by no means insensible-on the contrary, fully appreciating my position-that man said to me: "I think it's all up with us now, sir; but you stand by me, and I'll stand by you: we're two lonesome Yankees here." He then sculled his boat back to the others--the Burmese, meantime, having suspended their fire in the direction of the hospitalboat. You must not forget the boy, whom I had quite forgotten, and did not again remember until I saw him some days later. When we reached the other boats, I was lifted into the large launch of the Fox, under the awning (all the boats were now covered with

awnings), and laid in the bottom, with my head on an ammunition-box.

The midshipman in command of the party hastened to assure me that I was safe; and, finding me in a state of great mental excitement, endeavored to soothe me. While he was thus kindly employed, I became insensible for a time. These intervals of unconsciousness must have been comparatively brief, as the whole affair occupied only the middle of a day. I was roused by another alarm, another rapid firing of musketry, and again bullets whistled near me; I could see them penetrate the canvas awning of our boat, making little round holes, which let in the hateful sunshine upon my face. Several struck the seats, some hit the sides of the boat, and some fell into the water close by; but, very, strangely, no man was hurt as yet, although all were together in this launch.

Here, as lower down, the bank was very high and steep. The Burmese, who had driven me out of the hospital-boat, had followed me hither; they were still immediately over us, so that, in firing, it was necessary for our men to elevate their muskets almost perpendicularly.

Possessed with the energy of despair, unable to get their boats afloat—as there were not enough of them for some to defend the others while they workedand seeing no hope of communicating with our friends on shore, who were engaged in the assault of the town, my companions were fairly brought to bay, and determined to die hard. One man after another, as he loaded his musket, would run out to the bow, "spot" his "John Burma," and bring him down. The Burmese, who were arrant cowards, would creep cautiously forward, shoot, and run-firing very hastily their wretch ed muskets, with the most uncertain aim of the worst of all possible marksmen; so that, while our shots were never wasted, theirs had, as yet, done no harm. In a little while, however, one of our men received a ball in his shoulder-a flesh-wound merely, from which he soon recovered, but which disabled him for the time. Soon after that, my countryman-he who had come to my rescue when I was sinking-loaded his musket under the awning, occupied, in his turn, the bow of the boat which had just been vacated by another, and tak ing deliberate aim at a Burman—who, in that ridiculous spirit of bravado, so familiar to all who have had dealings

with the tattooed rascals, was performing a war-dance, making grimaces, and gesticulating with all sorts of insulting antics-shot him dead. Immediately, a dozen muskets replied-fired straight at him. Quietly walking back to where I was lying, in the bottom of the boat, and laying down his musket carefully, as if he had merely paused to rest, or to speak to me, he sat down by my side. Never suspecting that he was hurt, I scarcely noticed him, being occupied in watching for the holes, which still, from time to time, the bullets would make in the awning. Presently, he laid his hand softly upon mine, and said: "If you ever go to Boston, tell my mother, sir."

Why, nonsense, man," I exclaimed, "you're not hurt!" I stared in his face; death was there, and his eyes were closing. He made no reply; but, still clasping my hand, fell back and died.

After this, there was a brief pause in the fight; the Burmese ceased firing, as if to deliberate on some change of taotics--possibly, with the intention of coming down on us all together. That was the fear we should have entertained all the while, had we had time to reflect. Now, we saw the danger plainly, and that something must be done promptly, to prevent them from taking us by a coup de main. The midshipman, in a few hurried words, asked me to suggest something. I advised him to load and fire the twelve-pounder in the bow. He objected: "But you see my fire will be harmlessly wasted in the bank, far beneath their feet, and that, once perceived, may bring them down on us. It's only the sight of this piece, and their recollection of the noise it makes, and the havoc some of them have seen done by guns just like it, that keeps them where they are."

"But," I argued, "we can't stay here forever; our friends know nothing of our danger; the Burmese will presently discover that your piece is harmless, from the very fact of your not using it; we are only postponing the moment of our destruction. Fire the gun-load it heavily with grape, and fire it into the bank, with all the elevation you can get. Thus you may terrify them, as well by the noise as by the cutting up of the earth beneath their feet; at the same time, you will have the advantage of communicating with our friends by the only means available."