While we lay at Punamalee, Paddy L--, of our regiment, drowned himself in a tank, at the back of the barracks, upon a Sabbath morning. This man was going along with us for Europe, with a bad discharge, in consequence of having made himself unfit for further service by shooting off his hand, for which dreadful outrage against the laws of both God and man, as well as against his own body, he was sentenced to receive corporal punishment; to be kept in confinement during his stay with the regiment; and to be sent home with a blank discharge. He had also been frequently confined, after we came here, for different crimes; and once while he was in the _Cungie-house_,[17] having obtained a light, on pretence of lighting his pipe, he set fire to the place, attempting to burn both it and himself; and it was with considerable difficulty that his life, at that time, was saved, being taken out half suffocated, and as black as a chimney-sweep. I cannot inform the reader what were his diabolical motives for drowning himself; but we need not wonder much at it, when he was so depraved as to commit such crimes as I have mentioned, and indeed many others which I decline noticing; only this I will say, that "destruction and misery are in the way of such people, and the way of peace they have not known;" and no marvel that "their feet run into evil, and make haste to shed blood, seeing they have no fear of God before their eyes." [17] The _Cungie-house_ is intended to answer the same purpose as the black-hole for soldiers in this country; where the prisoners receive for subsistence boiled rice, and the water with which it is made ready, which kind of food is called _Cungie_; and from which also the place above mentioned receives the appellation _Cungie-house_.