of everything about me.

The fires had been made of small saplings and underbrush, hastily
collected, the mildness of the weather rendering anything beyond what
sufficed for the purposes of cooking and drying the men's clothes,
superfluous. The soldiers' tent was pitched at some distance from our
own, but not too far for us to hear distinctly their laughter and
apparent enjoyment after the fatigues of the day.

Under the careful superintendence of Corporal Kilgour, however, their
hilarity never passed the bounds of respectful propriety, and, by the
time we had eaten our suppers, cooked in the open air with the simple
apparatus of a tea-kettle and frying-pan, we were, one and all, ready to
retire to our rest.

The first sound that saluted our ears in the early dawn of the following
morning, was the far-reaching call of the bourgeois:

"How! how! how!" uttered at the very top of his voice.

All start at that summons, and the men are soon turning out of their
tents, or rousing from their slumbers beside the fire, and preparing for
the duties of the day.

The fire is replenished, the kettles set on to boil, the mess-baskets
opened, and a portion of their contents brought forth to be made ready
for breakfast. One Frenchman spreads our mat within the tent, whence the
bedding has all been carefully removed and packed up for stowing in the
boat. The tin cups and plates are placed around on the new-fashioned
table-cloth. The heavy dews make it a little too damp for us to