198 TKAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



now, high-hearted and light-spirited, ready for work 

 or fight. Careless and playful, he takes no thought 

 for the morrow. The whizz of a shot passing near 

 may cast a shade of seriousness over a group, but if 

 it leave no sad memory of mangled limbs or green 

 graves, the joke and pipe are soon alight again. He 

 who would know the English soldier must see him, 

 not in garrison or parade, or quarters, but in the 

 presence of his real work ; and he who would rule 

 him must study him welL And how with the leaders 

 and the chiefs of hundreds and fifties is it not 

 good for them too, this free camp life 1 Do not rough 

 living, rough lying, rough work, beget strong deeds, 

 strong thoughts, strong feelings ? Does not this life 

 engender good fellowship, real, honest, earnest inter- 

 course, and repudiate conventionalities and etiquettes ? 

 Does it not bring out the true and expose the sham 1 

 Is there not a charm in a life where one thinks, feels, 

 and eats naturally 1 Yes ; this life has a charm for 

 all all whom it boots to consider : a charm for the 

 imaginative man, in its vagueness, its strangeness, 

 its novelty, and picturesqueness ; a charm for the 

 vagabond spirit, in its restlessness, change, and un- 

 certainty ; for the enterprising, in its adventure and 

 action ; for the philosophising one, in the study of 

 the development of different natures under danger 

 and difficulty. 



There was a certain pleasantness, too, in the irreg- 

 ular conditions of eating, drinking, and sleeping. A 



