It was now December, and the cold was intense,
but it was impossible to procure winter clothing,
and the travellers had to make the best of what
they happened to have with them. As Chen-nan
was four days' journey from Talj-Fow, the man-



MARGARY REACHES BHAMO 131

darins did all they could to dissuade Margary from
going further, assuring him that the people of the
last-named town were very hostile to foreigners ;
but the Englishman, anxious to ascertain the truth
about native feeling for Europeans from actual
observation, was not to be deterred. On the i6th
December he boldly entered the city of inhospitable
reputation, and wrote in his journal : Veni, vidi,
vici ! He was unmolested, and weary though he
was, he remained but one night to rest, pushing
on the next day for the Burmese frontier. He
reached Manwyne, the scene soon afterwards of
his assassination, on January nth, and there found
an escort of forty soldiers from Burma sent to him
by Colonel Browne to protect him from attack by
the tribes of the frontier districts through which he
had now to pass. It is very probable that the
sudden appearance of all these armed men was
really the cause of Margary's death. Alone, the
gallant young explorer would have conciliated the
friendship of the natives as he had so often done
before, but surrounded by his guard he naturally
became an object of suspicion.
