ind had received equal cultivation; and such a one
I found in Charles ----, a young lieutenant in the ---- regiment,
quartered at Nassau. Our intimacy became the closer, in proportion as
we discovered the sottish habits and ignorance of those around us. We
usually spent our mornings in reading the classic authors with which
we were both familiar; we spouted our Latin verses; we fenced; and we
amused ourselves, occasionally, with a game of billiards, but never
ventured our friendship on a stake for money. When the heat of the day
had passed off, we strolled out, paid a few visits, or rambled over
the island; keeping as much aloof from the barracks as possible, where
the manner of living was so very uncongenial to our notions. The
officers began their day about noon, when they sat down to breakfast;
after that, they separated to their different quarters, to read the
novels, with which the presses of England and France inundated these
islands, to the great deterioration of morals. These books, which they
read lounging on their backs, or laid beside them and fell asleep
over, occupied the hottest part of the day; the remainder, till the
hour of dinner arrived, was consumed in visiting and gossiping, or in
riding to procure an appetite for dinner. Till four in the morning,
their time was wholly devoted to smoking and drinking; their beds
received them in a state of intoxication more or less; parade, at nine
o'clock, forced them out with a burning brain and parched tongue; they
rushed into the sea, and found some refreshment in the cool water,
which enabled them to stand upright in front of their men; the formal
duty over, they retired again to their beds, where they lay till noon,
and then to breakfast.

Such were their days; can it be wondered at that our islands are fatal
to the constitution of Europeans, when this is their manner of life in
a climate always disposed to take advantage of any excess? The men too
readily followed the example of their officers, and died off in the
same rapid manner; one of the most regular employments of the morning
was to dig graves for the victims of the night. Four or five of these
receptacles was thought a moderate number. Such was the fatal apathy
in which these officers existed, that the approach, nay; even
the certainty of death, gave them no apparent concern, caused no
preparation, excited no serious reflection. They followed the corpse
of a brother-officer to the grave in military pr