ents for
news, and the neighbouring houses for curiosity, they have always an
eye to their mess, and omit no opportunity of adding to the general
stock.

Dinner hour, for fear of accidents, is always the hour when dinner can
be got ready; and the 14th section of the articles of war is always
most rigidly attended to, by every good officer parading himself round
the camp-kettle at the time fixed, with his haversack in his hand. A
haversack on service is a sort of dumb waiter. The mess have a good
many things in common, but the contents of the haversack are
exclusively the property of its owner; and a well regulated one ought
never to be without the following furniture, unless when the
perishable part is consumed, in consequence of every other means of
supply having failed, viz. a couple of biscuit, a sausage, a little
tea and sugar, a knife, fork, and spoon, a tin cup, (which answers to
the names of _tea-cup_, _soup-plate_, _wine-glass_, and _tumbler_,) a
pair of socks, a piece of soap, a tooth-brush, towel, and comb, and
half a dozen cigars.

After doing justice to the dinner, if we feel in a humour for
additional society, we transfer ourselves to some neighbouring mess,
taking our cups, and whatever we mean to drink, along with us, for in
those times there is nothing to be expected from our friends beyond
the pleasure of their conversation: and, finally, we retire to rest.
To avoid inconvenience by the tossing off of the bed-clothes, each
officer has a blanket sewed up at the sides, like a sack, into which
he scrambles, and, with a green sod or a smooth stone for a pillow,
composes himself to sleep; and, under such a glorious reflecting
canopy as the heavens, it would be a subject of mortification to an
astronomer to see the celerity with which he tumbles into it. Habit
gives endurance, and fatigue is the best nightcap; no matter that the
veteran's countenance is alternately stormed with torrents of rain,
heavy dews, and hoar-frosts; no matter that his ears are assailed by a
million mouths of chattering locusts, and by some villanous donkey,
who every half hour pitches a _bray_ note, which, as a congregation of
presbyterians follow their clerk, is instantly taken up by every mule
and donkey in the army, and sent echoing from regiment to regiment,
over hill and valley, until it dies away in the distance; no matter
that the scorpion is lurking beneath his pillow, the snake winding his
slimy way by his side, and the li