n a
moment; and as soon as they found themselves free, they swam away for
the shore, which they saluted with a loud neigh as soon as they landed.
In the space of a quarter of a mile we had three or four hundred horses
in the water, all swimming for the shore at the same time; while their
anxious riders stood on the beach, waiting their arrival. I never saw
so novel or picturesque a sight.

I found the gun-boat service very hard. We were stationed off Batz, and
obliged to be constantly on the alert; but when Flushing surrendered we
had more leisure, and we employed it in procuring some articles for our
table, to which we had been too long strangers. Our money had been
expended in the purchase of champagne and claret, in which articles we
were no economists; consequently few florins could be spared for the
purchase of poultry and butcher's meat; but then these articles were to
be procured, by the same means which had given us the island of
Walcheren, namely, powder and shot. The country people were very
churlish, and not at all inclined to barter; and as we had nothing to
give in exchange, we avoided useless discussion. Turkeys, by us
short-sighted mortals, were often mistaken for pheasants; cocks and hens
for partridges; tame ducks and geese for wild; in short, such was our
hurry and confusion--leaping ditches, climbing dikes, and fording
swamps--that Buffon himself would never have known the difference
between a goose and a peacock. Our game-bags were as capacious as our
consciences, and our aim as good as our appetites.

The peasants shut all their poultry up in their barns, and very
liberally bestowed all their curses upon us. Thus all our supplies were
cut off, and foraging became at least a source of difficulty, if not of
danger. I went on shore with our party, put a bullet into my
fowling-piece, and, as I thought, shot a deer; but on more minute
inspection, it proved to be a four months' calf. This was an accident
that might have happened to any man. The carcass was too heavy to carry
home, so we cut it in halves, not fore and aft down the backbone, as
your stupid butchers do, but made a short cut across the loins, a far
more compendious and portable method than the other. We marched off
with the hind legs, loins, and kidney, having first of all buried the
head and shoulders in the field, determined to call and take it away the
following night.

We were partly seen, and severely scrutinised in our act