A day's salt pork and biscuit being served out, and all the officers with their knapsacks strapped on their backs, we began our march; the day was extremely sultry, without a breath of air; the road was perfectly flat, as well as the whole face of the country, which was intersected with ditches, covered with a thick ooze or vegetable substance, and high dykes rising on each side of the way. The Paymaster had joined the column, as the place of the greatest security. As guns from the gun-boats were sounding at intervals, in front and rear, we persuaded him that it was probable we might become engaged without any previous warning, by a front, flank, or rear attack, which information, added to the heat of the atmosphere, put him into such a state of perspiration, that when we halted, a liquid stream of hot water poured from his forehead, such as I have never before, nor since beheld; added to which, his tailor had fitted his corpulent sides to a nicety, although equal praise could not be bestowed on his hatter, who had manufactured his cap so large, that it fell over his face like an extinguisher, and the worst of it was, both his hands were occupied; in his right he held his wig and drenched pocket-handkerchief, while his left was in momentary request to disentangle his sabre from betwixt his legs. "Well," said he, with a good-tempered smile, "if ever I knew any thing like this!" and, notwithstanding his uncomfortable plight, he cracked his jokes, and proved himself a man of more ready wit, and possessing a greater fund of anecdote and humorous stories, than any one I ever met with, so that he became a general favourite throughout the regiment: but such a figure in a light infantry jacket! such skirts, with pockets large enough to have stowed away half the striplings of the corps! When the brigade was put in motion, he remained in the middle of the way, as they passed him right and left, and waited for the light waggons carrying our baggage; then stowing himself comfortably away in one of them, he was brought to our cantonments perfectly sick of campaigning. As we passed along, we were much struck at the great cleanliness of the cottages, and at the contented air of the well-dressed peasantry. The females were decorated with silver or gold ornaments about their persons, and many of them wore a plate of the same metal across their foreheads. The little boys of five or six years old held pipes in their mouths, smoking with all the gravity of men, and wore their hair long behind, broad-brimmed hats, brown jackets, short breeches, shoes, and silver buckles, precisely similar to the elders. We passed through Ter-Goes, a fine old brick town, surrounded by earth ramparts and a wet ditch; it opened its gates without making any resistance to Sir John Hope's corps.