On their departure the troops immediately fell in and started for the jade-mines, which were reached after an uneventful march on a rough forest path, which rose to an altitude of fifteen hundred feet. There was not much to see. "A collection of about fifty houses and what appeared to be a large quarry, while all over the place were blocks of white stone of all sizes, some of which were tinged or streaked with green." The main object of the expedition, to obtain the submission of the Kachin chiefs and assert the authority of the Government and its right to the revenue from the mines, had been attained. As no water was to be had, and there were no rations for the men, the force, after a short rest, marched back to camp. Everything had gone well during their absence from the camp. But disquieting letters had come from Mogaung, telling of a Kachin assault on the stockade.
It remained now to explore the Indaw country. Taking only a small party from the camp, Adamson went in boats up the Indaw River to the lake, a very fine piece of water, about sixteen miles long from north to south by six broad. He found the country round it to be naturally fertile and bearing marks of much former prosperity. But it had been the scene of the Kachin rebellion of 1883, which had its rising here, and here also the rebels had made their last stand. It had been devastated with all the ruthlessness of an Asiatic conqueror. It bore the marks of recent prosperity and a thick population. Good roads still united the ruined villages; nearly every little stream was crossed by solid teak bridges; sites of old villages still showed gardens of mango, jack, tamarind, and other fruit trees growing amongst monasteries and pagodas all absolutely deserted, amidst great stretches of splendid rice plains showing signs of recent cultivation. Yet only one small patch of land, about ten acres under tillage, and only in a few places some poor huts which, surrounded by double and treble stockades, showed the conditions under which the few surviving peasants lived.
It was hoped that with unlimited rice plains, a magnificent lake swarming with fish, a Government that would enforce peace, with open water communications and in the near future a railroad, this beautiful country would recover prosperity. All that can be said after a generation has passed is that "it is only beginning to recover from the devastation caused by the Kachin rising of 1883" (_Burma Gazetteer_, vol ii., p. 120, edit. 1908). So much easier is it to destroy than to restore.