CHAPTER IX. 



Devonshire. 



The winter of 1869-70 was a very severe one, occasioning 

 much discomfort to all who were quartered in the old 

 wooden huts at Aldershot. We had, however, as com- 

 pensation, a great deal of skating, though i^ was occasion- 

 ally rather dangerous, as places here and there did not 

 freeze as soon as the rest, and when covered over after- 

 wards by a thin skin of ice, were undistinguishable from 

 the sound ice. In this way one of my brother officers 

 was very nearly drowned. He had only just begun to 

 skate, and to keep himself warm was wearing a long thick 

 greatcoat, while mastering the difficulty of keeping on an 

 " edge." He was plodding along by himself, when he got 

 on to some of the thin ice, which at once gave way with 

 him. Weighted as he was by his greatcoat, it was all 

 that he could do to keep his mouth above water, holding 

 on to a large piece of broken ice, for his struggles at first 

 had broken up the ice in every direction round him. 

 There was a great cry for ladders and ropes, and several 

 well-meaning individuals started off to skate to Aldershot 

 for them, a distance of two miles, and long before they 

 could have returned our comrade must have disappeared. 

 Fortunately I was wearing a very long woollen comforter, 

 so long, indeed, that the ends nearly touched the ground 



