Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/102

94 were all comfortably ensconced in couples in small excavations something after the manner of the pit dwellings of prehistoric times. Even a roof was not wanting, and each couple of soldiers had with them the simple commissariat necessary for the whole period during which the siege was expected to last.

It was not long before the English leaders found a way of coping with the difficulties of this novel system of warfare. A cannonade was almost useless against the stockades: the very flimsiness of the structure was its strength. But shells had a wonderful effect in unnerving the defenders, while at least the European soldiers developed a marvellous capacity for climbing and swarming over the barrier. The courage of the natives did not long survive the consciousness that their position was no longer impregnable, and though in the very early stage of hostilities the barbarous shouts and yells and drummings of the warriors of Ava unmanned the assailants, there came a time when the mere appearance of the soldiers of John Company rushing to the attack on one side, was the signal for a wholesale flight of the Burmese on the other. The capture of a stockade was sometimes like a hurdle race, but occasionally the conflict was desperate and there were cases in which victory remained with the less civilized combatants. To the last it was considered unsafe to send Sepoys against the enclosures unless they were supported or even led by Europeans. Many contemporaneous sketches exist of these encounters, which give a vivid