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.
 
I was opposed to this project, and besought the Viceroy to disallow it. I looked upon it as a certain way of rousing the Chins before we were ready to deal with them. A few days before the end of 1887 Lord Dufferin telegraphed his agreement with my view. In a letter which followed, he wrote: "When the idea was originally proposed, I allowed the matter to be taken in hand with some hesitation, as I felt that it would probably prove a premature endeavour, and I saw no special reason for embarking on luxurious enterprises of the kind while the main work on which we are engaged is still incomplete. For God\'s sake let us get Burma proper quiet before we stir up fresh chances of trouble and collision in outlying districts."

Of the wisdom of this doctrine there was no doubt. And no one could have been more anxious to avoid new difficulties than I was. The Chins, however, forced our hands, and before the rains of 1888 it was clear that it would be impossible to ignore them. It was foreseen from the first that the occupation of Upper Burma must bring us into conflict with half-savage or altogether savage tribes who occupied the mountains on three sides of the province; and no doubt when it was decided to annex the kingdom the responsible authorities had this matter in their minds.

From the first occupation of Mogaung the isolation of that post and the difficulty of reinforcing it, especially in the rains, was a source of disquiet. I had lost no time in asking that some mountain guns should be attached to the Mogaung battalion of military police, and that a survey for an extension of the railway to the north of the province should be undertaken. The guns were readily granted. To give life to the railway project several departments in India had to be persuaded, notably Finance and Public Works. When their consent had been obtained the Government of India had to move the Secretary of State to sanction the work and to grant the money for it. The survey was started in 1890, and some progress, which may be characterized without injustice as deliberate, had been made before I surrendered Burma to my successor in December of that year. The line to Myitkyina, three hundred and thirty-one miles, was opened in 1895.

These frontier matters have been dealt with in separate chapters of this book. They are referred to here to show the change which had come over the province. The area[102] of administration was extending rapidly—more rapidly than our resources in men.

Before the end of 1888 the interior of the province ceased to give much cause for anxiety, although it cannot be described as altogether restful. Daylight had appeared in the districts of the Northern and Central Divisions, where the outlook had been darkest. And in some of the southern districts, Minbu and Myingyan (in which was now included Pagan), and in Pakokku, as well as in the whole of the Eastern Division, the disturbances had ceased or were confined to difficult forest tracks in which the remaining gangs had taken refuge.

The Magwè district, as it was now called (the township on the left bank of the river, which had before belonged to Minbu, had been transferred to the Taungdwingyi district, and the headquarters moved to the river town of Magwè), was a source of trouble and sorrow. Nothing seemed to succeed there. Sir Robert Low\'s warning that this would be the last stronghold of dacoity or organized resistance was justified by events.

The British public were becoming very weary of Burma and even of the abuse heaped upon the local government of the province. Tormented by the questions in Parliament, the Secretary of State would order us every now and then to report how we were getting on, like a child that has planted a flower and pulls it up occasionally to make sure that it is alive. Nevertheless those on the spot were not disheartened. The work had to be done, and all were determined to do it. Personally I had encouragement from every one in the province, civilian or soldier, for whose opinion I cared. Lord Dufferin\'s kindness and support were never wanting. He understood well the nature of the task. He was satisfied with the work done, and his confidence in our success was firm.

Writing to me on April 2, 1888, he expressed his satisfaction with our work and with what had been done, in terms which are too flattering to be repeated by me.

The constant recurrence of small encounters, small successes, and occasionally small disasters, was very wearisome at the time to all of us, and would be as fatiguing to the reader as to me to relate. I will give the history of some[103] cases, which will be enough to explain how the province settled down. It will be remembered that the Village Regulation became law in October, 1887. It took some time to get the district officers, magistrates as well as police, to make themselves acquainted with it, and still longer to induce some of them to make use of its provisions.

In the summer of 1888 the country generally had improved much. Few of the big Bos, or leaders of gangs, were left. But in some districts there was not merely a system of brigandage; it was a system, a long-established system, of government by brigands. The attacks on villages, the murder and torture of headmen and their families, were not so much the symptoms of rebellion against our Government as of the efforts made by the brigands to crush the growing revolt against their tyranny.

Hence it came about that in districts where there was little activity on the part of British officers, and where the chief civil officer failed to get information, very little was heard of the dacoits, simply because the ............