improved the time by helping myself to the buttermilk.
I could never before relish buttermilk, but extreme hunger at this time gave it a new relish. So true is the observation of the wise man, "A full belly loatheth a honeycomb: but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is
sweet." While I was in this house I went into the kitchen
where I saw a simple incident which excited my risibility, maugre my fatigue. There was a large pot hanging over a considerable fire, but more smoke; the pot contained, to appearance, a large hock of fresh beef, the water in the pot had ebbed considerably and the meat made its appearance some way above it; upon the top of the meat, surrounded by fire and smoke, sat the old house-cat
wreathing her head one way and the other, and twisting
the beef into her face as fast as possible, winking and
blinking in the steam and smoke like a toad in a shower.
I left her at her occupation and went out.
We arrived upon the lines and joined the other corps which was already there. No one who has never been upon such duty as those advanced parties have to perform, can form any adequate idea of the trouble, fatigue and dangers which they have to encounter. Their whole time is spent in marches, (especially night marches,) watching, starving, and, in cold weather, freezing and sickness. If they get any chance to rest, it must be in the woods or fields, under the side of a fence, in an orchard or in any other place but a comfortable one;—lying down on the cold and often wet ground, and, perhaps, before the eyes can be closed with a moment's sleep, alarmed and compelled to stand under arms an hour or two, or to receive an attack from the enemy; and when permitted again to endeavour to rest, called upon immediately to remove some four or five miles to seek some other place, to go through the same manœuvring as before; for it was dangerous to remain any length of time in one place for fear of being informed of by some tory inhabitant, (for there were a plenty of this sort of savage beast during the revolutionary war,) and ten thousand other causes to harrass, fatigue and perplex, which time and room will not permit me to enumerate.
We were once on one of those night marches, advancing toward the enemy and not far from them, when, towards the latter part of the night, there came on a heavy
