COL. ANSTRUTHER THOMSON 35 



L. did the same. They have been ten weeks on the 

 road now and are not yet arrived. 



" I have not got no more to tell you. By-the- 

 bye, thinking of negations or negatives, in one of the 

 travellers' books somewhere or other I read the 

 following : ' A Cockney having lost his hat at a party 

 exclaimed, " Hasn't nobody not never seen ne'er a 

 'at nowhere " '. However, having told you all my 

 news, give my love to Clem, and tell her to get well. 

 How glad I shall be to have a chat at home, and I 

 am, 



" Your affec. 



"J. A. Thomson." 



I left Nancy on the top of a diligence, on a very 

 hot day, with my poodle " Lorrine ". The dust was 

 perfectly awful, and the heat stifling. Two French 

 soldiers were my conipagnons de voyage, and I pro- 

 duced my commission, which caused them to remark 

 I was bien heureux to be a sous-lieutenant at such 

 an early age. I was then 6 feet 2 inches in height, 

 according to my passport : " Cheveux blonds, yeux 

 bleux, nez moyen, menton rond, . . , taeli^ de rous- 

 seaux". I went down the Rhine to Rotterdam, and 

 there embarked for London. 



3* 



