spoken to by any
one. They were mostly a plain-headed, badly-painted lot, and
ridiculously dressed.

[3] Nova-Scotian.

[4] During all my travels in the South I never saw a regiment so well
clothed or so well drilled as this one, which has never been in action,
or been exposed to much hardship.

* * * * *

_9th April_ (Thursday).--Captain Hancock and Mr Anderson left for Bagdad
in Mr Behnsen's carriage at noon.

I crossed over to Brownsville at 11.30, and dined with Colonels
Luckett, Buchel, and Duff, at about one o'clock. As we were all
colonels, and as every one called the other colonel _tout court_, it was
difficult to make out which was meant. They were obliged to confess that
Brownsville was about the rowdiest town of Texas, which was the most
lawless state in the Confederacy; but they declared they had never seen
an inoffensive man subjected to insult or annoyance, although the
shooting-down and stringing-up systems are much in vogue, being almost a
necessity in a thinly-populated state, much frequented by desperadoes
driven away from more civilised countries.

Colonel Luckett gave me a letter to General Van Dorn, whom they consider
the _beau ideal_ of a cavalry soldier. They said from time immemorial
the Yankees had been despised by the Southerners, as a race inferior to
themselves in courage and in honourable sentiments.

At 3 P.M. Colonel Buchel and I rode to Colonel Duff's camp, distant
about thirteen miles. I was given a Mexican saddle, in which one is
forced to sit almost in a standing position. The stirrups are very long,
and right underneath you, which throws back the feet.

Duff's regiment is called the Partisan Rangers. Although a fine lot of
men, they don't look well at a foot parade, on account of the small
amount of drill they have undergone, and the extreme disorder of their
clothing. They are armed with carbines and six-shooters.

I saw some men come in from a scouting expedition against the Indians,
300 miles off. They told me they were usually in the habit of scalping
an Indian when they caught him, and that they never spared one, as they
were such an untamable and ferocious race. Another habit which they have
learned from the Indians is, to squat on their heels in a most peculiar
manner. It has an absurd and extraordinary effect to see a quantity of
them so squatting in a row or in a circle.

The regiment had been employed in quelling a counter revoluti