84 HORSE, FOOT, AND DRAGOONS. 



arms, were falling in or marching off over the adjacent fields, 

 others were unloading a huge wagon -pile of straw that had 

 come up meanwhile from the rear, the soldiers carrying it 

 away in great armfuls to make their beds ; some were cutting 

 wood or digging the circular trenches around the places where 

 the bivouac fires were to be made, and which serve as a pre- 

 ventative to the straw on which the men lie being ignited by 

 the flames, while others again were busily engaged in pleating 

 the same material into great screens, to protect the sleepers 

 from the wind. These screens are fastened to stakes driven 

 into the ground, and form a circle — an opening being left for 

 the inorress and egrress of the men — around the fire, the sol- 

 diers sleeping with their heads against the screens and their 

 feet towards the flames. The circle is called a " Feuerring " 

 {anglice, fire- ring), and forms as warm and comfortable a sleep- 

 ing-place as the circumstances will permit. 



Although now no longer confined to the strict discipline 

 of the ranks, the same spirit of order seemed to reign among 

 the men. I could hear them chatting and laughing over their 

 tasks, but in a subdued manner, and with a stolid attention to 

 the work in hand. There was no loud singing and whistling, 

 no dancing the "can -can," no shouting and gesticulating, but 

 everything was thoroughly and quickly done, and the straw- 

 encircled " Feuerringe " rose as if by magic all about the quiet 

 fields. No more picturesque or appropriate spot could have 

 well been chosen for a bivouac than the little dell in which 

 we were encamped. There was not a house or structure of any 

 kind in sight, for we lay in a little green basin among the hills, 

 surrounded by the quiet woods, the rays of the afternoon sun 

 streaming through the leafy openings among the trees, and 

 dancing in sparkling points of light on the burnished metal 

 of the piles of arms. The caterer of the mess had been fortu- 



