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381 right to sleep quietly at home while these people of the border were driven from their habitations and their property despoiled; that when they had returned with the probability of remaining undisturbed, we might consider our services finished. Upon the conclusion of his remarks we gave him three cheers and he drove off.

(Friday, July 17th.) A number of cattle were brought in for beef, and shot. I had acquired a disgust for fresh beef from a singularly unpleasant taste, which the method of preparation gave it, and from seeing our dirty cook holding the pieces down on the ground with his filthy feet while he cut them off with an axe. When, however, we could manage to get hold of some of the raw meat and fry it ourselves I could eat it with great relish. I liked the salt pork much better than beef, and generally ate the proportion of two or three men, as some of them would scarcely touch it. A dislike to the coffee had also grown upon me, and I drank water altogether. At a farm house a few fields from where we were encamped was the finest spring of water I ever saw anywhere, being almost as cold as ice and affording an inexhaustible supply. Much nearer and directly in front of the camp, underneath a steep hill, were several smaller though equally good springs which we used principally. Small pipes made from the bark of trees had been fitted in them for the water to run through as it came from the bank, which materially assisted in filling the canteens. Every morning early we went there for that purpose and to wash in the delightfully cool and fresh stream. It is one of the most important considerations to have a camp where there is plenty of good water. Pumps are very frequently exhausted by the continual use, from which results one beneficial effect, the supply is usually cold and agreeable. That region abounds in raspberries,