s provided for campaigners
in a country almost deluged three months in the year, and more variable
in its climate than any other region, passing from the extreme of heat
to that of cold in a few hours. During the whole of November and
December, either the rains were descending with violence, or the furious
"northers" which ravage this coast were breaking the frail tent-poles or
rending the rotten canvas. For days and weeks every article in hundreds
of tents was thoroughly soaked; and during these terrible months, the
sufferings of the sick, in the crowded hospital tents, were
indescribably horrible. Every day added to the frightfulness of the
mortality. At one time a sixth of the entire camp was on the sick list,
and at least one-half unfit for service, in consequence of dysentery and
catarrhal fevers which raged like a pestilence."[79] The camp was
without fires, and, being situated on the edge of a vast prairie
sparsely covered with muskeet trees, was but scantily supplied with wood
even for the most needful purposes. The quarter-master's department
furnished only the weak and stunted _mustangs_ of the country; and the
little and inefficient ponies, geared in the large harness made at the
north for American horses, looked as if they would jump through their
collars instead of use them for traction. With such teams only a
sufficiency of wood could be drawn for cooking, and none for camp fires
to comfort the sick and suffering soldiers. "As winter advanced, the
prairie became a quagmire, the roads almost impassable, and as the
_mustangs_ died in large numbers, wood enough for cooking even, could
not be procured. The encampment now resembled a marsh, the water, at
times, being three or four feet deep in the tents of whole wings of
regiments. All military exercises were suspended, and the bleak gloomy
days were passed in inactivity, disgust and sullenness. The troops,
after being thoroughly drenched all day, without fires to dry them, lay
down at night in wet blankets on the soaked ground, as plank for tent
floors was not furnished by the quarter-masters until the rainy season
was over. At times the men, at tattoo, gasped for breath in the sultry
night air, and, at reveille, found their moist blankets frozen around
them and their tents stiff with ice. A portion of the men were kept
without pay for six months, and the rest for four months, although the
law strictly requires payment every two months.

"Officers and soldiers