Coleridge now went on, describing to them, in glowing colors, the valor, the wars, and the conquests of this famous general. "Ah," said one man, whose open mouth had complimented the speaker for the preceding half-hour, "Ah," said he, "Silas, this Alexander must have been as great a man as our colonel!" Coleridge now told them of the "Retreat of the Ten Thousand." "I don't like to hear of retreat," said one. "Nor I," said a second; "I'm for marching on." Coleridge now told of the incessant conflicts of those brave warriors, and of the virtues of "the square." "They were a parcel of crack men," said one. "Yes," said another, "their bayonets fixed, and sleeping on their arms day and night." "I should like to know," said a fourth, "what rations were given with all that hard fighting;" on which an Irishman replied, "To be sure, every time the sun rose, two pounds of good ox beef, and plenty of whisky." At another time he told them of the invasion of Xerxes, and his crossing the _wide_ Hellespont. "Ah!" said a young recruit, a native of an obscure village in Kent, who had acquired a decent smattering of geography, knowing well that the earth went round, was divided into land and water, and that there were more countries on the globe than England, and who now wished to show off a little before his comrades--"Silas, I know where that 'Hellspont' is. I think it must be the mouth of the Thames, for _'tis_ very wide." Coleridge now told them of the heroes of Thermopylæ; when the geographer interrupted him by saying, "Silas, I know, too where that there Moppily is, it's somewhere up in the north." "You are quite right, Jack," said Coleridge, "it is to the north of the line." A conscious elevation marked his countenance; and he rose at once five degrees in the estimation of his friends.