ool for
skirmishers" in a single lesson of two hours, so that they did them
very passably, though I feel bound to discourage such haste. However,
I "formed square" on the third battalion drill. Three fourths of drill
consist of attention, imitation, and a good ear for time; in the
other fourth, which consists of the application of principles, as, for
instance, performing by the left flank some movement before learned
by the right, they are perhaps slower than better educated men. Having
belonged to five different drill-clubs before entering the army, I
certainly ought to know something of the resources of human awkwardness,
and I can honestly say that they astonish me by the facility with which
they do things. I expected much harder work in this respect.

The habit of carrying burdens on the head gives them erectness of
figure, even where physically disabled. I have seen a woman, with a
brimming water-pail balanced on her head, or perhaps a cup, saucer,
and spoon, stop suddenly, turn round, stoop to pick up a missile, rise
again, fling it, light a pipe, and go through many evolutions with
either hand or both, without spilling a drop. The pipe, by the way,
gives an odd look to a well-dressed young girl on Sunday, but one often
sees that spectacle. The passion for tobacco among our men continues
quite absorbing, and I have piteous appeals for some arrangement
by which they can buy it on credit, as we have yet no sutler. Their
imploring, "Cunnel, we can't _lib_ widout it, Sah," goes to my heart;
and as they cannot read, I cannot even have the melancholy satisfaction
of supplying them with the excellent anti-tobacco tracts of Mr. Trask.

December 19.

Last night the water froze in the adjutant's tent, but not in mine.
To-day has been mild and beautiful. The blacks say they do not feel
the cold so much as the white officers do, and perhaps it is so, though
their health evidently suffers more from dampness. On the other hand,
while drilling on very warm days, they have seemed to suffer more from
the heat than their officers. But they dearly love fire, and at night
will always have it, if possible, even on the minutest scale,--a
mere handful of splinters, that seems hardly more efficacious than a
friction-match. Probably this is a natural habit for the short-lived
coolness of an out-door country; and then there is something delightful
in this rich pine, which burns like a tar-barrel. It was, perhaps,
encouraged by the mas