I received a hearty welcome from them all, though only one of them, a lance-corporal, who was working in the general office, belonged to the Legion: he came from the 2nd Regiment. We sat down to our meal in a small building close to the offices of the Brigade; and the fare, which was better than I had been used to at Nha-Nam, and the unexpected luxuries of china plates, real glasses, a table covered with white oil-cloth and a punkah, were more than sufficient to reconcile me to my new surroundings. Owing to the extra pay we drew--about one and sixpence a day--it was not only possible to keep up a good mess, but, besides the cook, we were able to maintain a boy, at four _piastres_ a month--about eight shillings--and this faithful servitor swept out our quarters, made the beds, cleaned our boots, pipe-clayed our helmets, and performed a hundred and one other services, which I had become so used to doing for myself that it was several days before I could become accustomed to leave the work to him, much to the amusement of the other secretaries. The morning after my arrival I rose and dressed at 5.30 A.M., as I had been used to do in my company; but I got roundly sworn at by the other occupants of the room for awakening them by my noisy ablutions. The fault lay with them, however, for they had neglected to inform me that the office opened at eight, though it was several weeks before I could accustom myself to lie abed till seven each morning. I found that my task consisted partly in aiding in the drawing up of a new map of the Yen-Thé, and partly in clerical and intelligence work. This last part was the most interesting, for I had to write down the reports of the different spies attached to the Brigade, and the depositions of the captured brigands when they were interrogated by the lieutenant in charge of our office. Besides this, I had to pass an hour each morning with the Brigade Major, as it was my duty to register all the correspondence received, the letters and reports being handed over to me for that purpose by Captain Michaud, as soon as he had perused them. By this means I became acquainted with everything of interest that was going on in the colony, so far as rebellion, brigandage and military operations were concerned; and I had not been long on the staff before I realised that the little warfare in which my company had taken a part in the Yen-Thé was but a chapter in the history of a struggle that was still going on all over the country, outside of the Delta provinces, between the French on one hand and the Tonquinese rebels and Chinese bands on the other. Columns were marching, or being organised, against such chiefs as Luu-Ky, whose powerful gangs of well-armed plunderers overran the provinces of Quang-Yen, Lam and Lang-son; the veteran banditti of the quasi-feudal lords, Ba-Ky and Luong-Tam-Ky, in the districts of Cao-Bang and Ha-Giang, on the higher reaches of the Red River, and the frontiers of Yunan, Kwang-si and