Everyone who could get away had gone to the Hills or out to sea; and the offices being closed for the Hindu holidays of the _Durga Puja,_ it was extremely difficult to get work done.

Everything for the Chittagong column had to be sent by sea.

The shipping of the elephants was rather interesting: they clung desperately to the ground, trying hard to prevent themselves being lifted from it; and when at last, in spite of all their struggles, they were hoisted into the air, the helpless appearance of the huge animals and their despairing little cries and whines were quite pathetic.

I found it trying work being on the river all day; my eyes suffered from the glare, and I became so reduced that before I left Calcutta I weighed scarcely over eight stone--rather too fine a condition in which to enter on a campaign in a mountainous country, so thickly covered with jungle as to make riding out of the question.
By the 3rd November the equipment and stores for both columns had been despatched, and on the 16th I joined General Bourchier at the house of that most hospitable of hosts, Mr.Edgar,[2] Deputy-Commissioner of Cachar, who accompanied the left column as civil officer.
We left Cachar on the 23rd, and from the outset we had to make our own roads, a labour which never ceased until the end of January, by which date 110 miles had been completed.

There was not the vestige of a track to direct us; but I got hold of some people of the country, with whom I made friends, and induced them to act as guides.