While the basis of his disposition was British, still there was in him an Irish element. His heart was with Ulster, and in his hardest times he would recur to the defence of Londonderry. He was often humorous, vivacious and laughter-loving, to a degree which is not usual with Britons of so rough and hard a fibre as his. He was frequently grave and silent; his temper, too, though very good in reality, was not mild, and occasionally might seem to be irascible; nevertheless when at his ease, or off his guard, he would relax at once into smiles and witticisms. If wrapped up in preoccupation of thought--as was but too often the case--he must needs be serious. But if not preoccupied, he would look forth upon the world around him, men, things, animals and objects generally, with a genial desire to gain amusement from them all, and to express that amusement in racy terms to any friend or companion who might be with him. As he moved along a thoroughfare of traffic or the streets of a city, his talk sparkled like a hill-stream flowing freshly over a stony bed. His wit was abundantly seasoned by the use of metaphor. His figures of speech were drawn not only from his native West but from the East of his adoption. His _repertoire_ and vocabulary were thus enriched from Oriental resources which abound in imagery. He had in early years acquired not a scholar-like but a competent knowledge of Persian. Thus he was able to apply the similes, the tropes, the quirks of that flowery language to passing objects in a manner which moved everyone European or Native to laughter. He had an amazing memory for tales of real life, in the East chiefly, and these he would on occasion narrate in a vivid or graphic style. Beneath a rough-hewn exterior there flowed an undercurrent of gentleness and tenderness which he reserved for his home. In his domestic life he was thoroughly happy, and fortunate beyond the average lot of mankind. This had a quieting and softening effect upon him amidst the distraction and excitement of active life. Never having studied art of any kind, or paid any attention to music and painting, he would not idealize anything, nor take an artistic view of the grand and glorious objects in Nature that often met his eye. But if such an object affected military or political combinations--as for instance a precipitous defile, a bluff headland, a treacherous river-passage, a rockbound ravine--then he would describe it with eloquent, even poetic, illustrations.