Hitherto they had generally stood on the defensive, and had to fight the climate rather than the foe; and it seemed to them that the campaign was likely to be interminable.
The march of the Burmese from Ramoo to Sembeughewn, the nearest point of the river to the former town, must have been a terrible one.

The distance was over two hundred miles, the rains were ceaseless, and the country covered with jungles and marshes, and intersected by rivers.

No other army could have accomplished such a feat.

The Burmans, however, accustomed to the unhealthy climate, lightly clad, and carrying no weight save their arms and sixteen days' supply of rice, passed rapidly over it.
Every man was accustomed to the use of an axe and to the formation of rafts and, in an incredibly short time, rivers were crossed, deep swamps traversed on roads made by closely-packed faggots and, but a few days after hearing that Bandoola had started, the general learned, from peasants, that the news had come down that he and a portion of his army had arrived at Sembeughewn.
Almost at the same time, other parties who travelled down along the coast reached Donabew, a town on the Irrawaddy, some forty miles in direct line from Rangoon.

This had been named as the rendezvous of the new army, and to this a considerable proportion of Bandoola's force made their way direct from Ramoo; it being the custom of the Burmese to move, when on a march through a country where no opposition was to be looked for, in separate detachments, each under its own leader, choosing its own way, and making for a general rendezvous.