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It was computed that 30,000 men alone perished after the fall of the old Panthay capital, and the Futai sent to Yunnanfoo twenty-four large baskets full of human ears, as well as the heads of the seventeen chiefs. With the capture of Talifoo the great Mohammedan rebellion in the southwest, to which the Burmese gave the name of Panthay, closed, after a desultory struggle of nearly eighteen years.
Seven months had thus been spent in desultory adventures and in multitudinous preparations without a serious military object, and still the capture of Mobile was to be put off, and still the dream of a foothold in Texas was to be pursued. As for Texas, if the government had, especially at this time, any settled plan, it is by no means easy to make out what it was.
There was no wind, no motion; the little whirlwinds of dust that arose settled quickly down, the desultory breezes which had caused them departing as mysteriously as they had come. In the blighting heat the country lay, dead, spreading to the infinite horizons; in the sky no speck floated against the dome of blue.
Ef ye ain't I'm shore to satisfy ye the fust time I git a chance at ye, ye blab-mouthed eejit!" Before this conversation was ended a rain began to fall, and it rapidly thickened from a desultory shower to a roaring downpour that effectually quenched not only the fires around which the savages were dancing, but the enthusiasm of the dancers as well.
"Well," said the Honourable Hilary, "we must have Ham Tooting hurry 'round and fix it up with him as soon as he can talk, before one of these cormorant lawyers gets his claw in him." Austen said nothing, and after some desultory conversation, in which he knew how to indulge when he wished to conceal the fact that he was baffled, the Honourable Hilary departed. That student of human nature, Mr.
Reshid's wrath was principally directed against Almayer, whom he suspected of having notified the Dutch authorities of the desultory warfare carried on by the Arabs and the Rajah with the up-river Dyak tribes. To Reshid's great surprise the Rajah received his complaints very coldly, and showed no signs of vengeful disposition towards the white man.
A desultory battle was fought all day on the 5th, near Williamsburg, the enemy withdrawing at night. McClellan now moved slowly up the peninsula, the last of May finding his army within ten miles of Richmond, encamped on both sides of the Chickahominy. By this time nearly 70,000 troops had gathered for the defence of the Confederate capital.
A rampart of loose stones, overgrown with brambles and broken in places as if for the passage of cattle, enclosed the premises, and the typical well of the country lifted its curving pole in the front yard only a few feet from the roadway. Two women were seated on the worn stone slab in the opening that served for a gate, evidently basking in the afternoon sun and engaged in desultory chat.
This concession, which is the southernmost but one upon the Tákwá ridge, contains one thousand by two thousand fathoms; and desultory work began in 1880. In places it forms a basset, or outcrop, cresting the summit; and the eastern flank is cliffy, like that of the Tebribi.
From where I stood I could hear the sound of desultory firing across the bridge, and inquired what was in progress. But there was an ominous silence. They did not reply; for, as I afterwards discovered, they had taken me for a high police official from Petersburg, thus accounting for the innkeeper's courtesy.
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