Scarce three thousand remained fit for duty, and the greater portion of these were so emaciated and exhausted, by the effects of the climate, that they were altogether unfit for active operations.
Three weeks after the fight at the pagoda a vessel came up the river, with a letter from the officer in command of the troops assembled to bar the advance of Bandoola against Chittagong, saying that the Burmese army had mysteriously disappeared.

It had gone off at night, so quietly and silently that our outposts, which were but a short distance from it, heard no sign or movement, whatever.

The Burmese had taken with them their sick, tents, and stores; and nothing but a large quantity of grain had been found in their deserted stockades.
The news was received with satisfaction by the troops.

There was little doubt that the court of Ava--finding that their generals had all failed in making the slightest impression upon our lines, and had lost vast numbers of men--had at last turned to the leader who had conquered province after province for it, and had sent him orders to march, with his whole army, to bring the struggle to a close.

The soldiers rejoiced at the thought that they were at last to meet a real Burmese army.