Chap. VI. SURVEYING CADETS. ^ 
evidently new ; — their guns just out of their cases, 
fastened across tight-fitting shooting-jackets by patent 
leather belts ; their forage-caps of superfine cloth ; 
and their white collars relieved by new black silk 
neck-kerchiefs. Some positively walked with gloves 
and dandy-cut trousers ; and, to crown all, their faces 
shone with soap. There had been a little rain, too, 
the night before ; and, having only got about two miles 
from the town, they were actually picking their way, 
and stepping carefully over muddy places. I sat 
down on the stump of a tree and vastly enjoyed the 
cockney procession ; wondering how long the neatness 
of their appearance and the fastidiousness of their 
steps would last. They, on the other hand, stared 
at me, as though they had considered me one of the 
curiosities of the interior ; — turning up their noses 
with evident contempt at my rough red woollen smock, 
belted over a coarse cotton check shirt, without neck- 
cloth, and stout duck trousers, and gaping with horror 
at my longhair, unshaven beard, and short black pipe, 
half-hidden under a broad-brimmed and rather dirty 
Manilla hat. They appeared, too, to view with some 
distrust a sheath knife, about eighteen inches in the 
blade, which I had made my constant companion, and 
with which I was cutting up negro-head tobaccco. 
The mutual expressions of astonishment and derision 
depicted on the respective features of the old hand and 
the young muffs meeting in the bush would have been 
nuts to a painter wanting a new idea. 
A melancholy accident had deprived the New Ply- 
mouth settlement of the services of Captain Liardet. 
While saluting a vessel which arrived in the roadstead 
with emigrants from England, this officer had rather 
carelessly looked down the muzzle of a small cannon 
which had failed to explode, and down which a red* 
M 2 
