JAUNTS IN THE JUNGLE. 23 



against this " downy" tribe, is, perhaps, worth the 

 chronicling. 



It was tiffin (i. e., luncheon) time in the garrison 



of , in Ceylon ; that long anticipated glorious 



hour of the twenty-four, which proclaims the eight 

 interminable ones following the morning's parade to 

 be knocked on the head for that day at least 

 those hours so vividly remembered, in which, like 

 miserable ghosts, the dwellers in barracks wander for- 

 lornly up and down the corridors, puffing Manilla 

 cheroots, desperately asking every body they mo- 

 mentarily encounter "what o'clock it is,"- and bully- 

 ing the messman because it is not an hour later ; 

 sighing for " two, P.M. ;" as if it were the moment 

 they had lived all their lives to survive and be 

 millenium-ized! 



It was tiffin time, and a dozen of us had tallyho'd 

 the first mess-waiter with the first dish of curry into 

 the mess-room, when the major (who, bless his old 

 soul ! is now quartered in Heaven) made his appear- 

 ance at table among us (" his boys," as he used to 

 call us), bearing on his shoulders a physiognomy 



Eheu ! tantum mutatus ab illo ! 



in which he had left us the night before, as to make 

 it evident that there was a screw loose : and it was 

 not until the worthy old soul had drained a tumbler 

 full of " claret cup" at a draft (a compound, good 

 reader! of claret, mint, sugar, and nutmeg, iced 



