2 SOUTH AFRICA. 



and remarkable activity in fact, the best man 

 with the foils I ever met 



Of soldiers and sailors, of English country life, 

 too, I saw a good deal At my father's place in 

 Devonshire, and elsewhere, I met such well-known 

 people as Sir Robert Peel, Bulwer, Lord Mahon, 

 Lord Melbourne, and the great and good " Iron 

 Duke," and many of his Peninsula and Waterloo 

 heroes. 



Often I would take a trip to Greenwich, for a 

 long chat with some of the armless or legless old 

 pensioners who had fought under Nelson and other 

 naval heroes of the great war. Of these veterans 

 there were at that time two thousand comfortably 

 cared for in the grand old palace, and it was de- 

 lightful to sit under a tree in the park and, while 

 rilling their pipes with the best tobacco, listen to 

 the well-told yarns of these cheery old Vikings, 

 whose conversation was far more instructive than 

 that with which one is usually bored in more polished 

 circles. With many of the non-commissioned 

 military officers of the armies led by Wellington 

 in the Peninsula and at Waterloo I struck up a 

 close acquaintance and acquired much information. 

 These men generally were remarkable for broader 



