After several days of foggy weather--the month was March--we arrived at Annapolis, Md. During our voyage I could see that many of my companions were eating too much, and feared the result. As for myself, I was still too sick to eat anything. Perhaps this was fortunate for me. To have been turned into our lines with the starvation appetite, I might have killed myself by over-eating, as many others undoubtedly did. At Annapolis I was carried on a stretcher from the boat to a hospital in one of the Naval School buildings. Here I remained for a couple of weeks, and was then sent with some others to Baltimore, having recovered sufficiently to be allowed to undertake the journey. On commencing to get better at Annapolis, I found my greatest trouble was with my stomach. It seemed contracted into a space no larger than my fist, and everything I ate seemed to irritate it; and I could apparently feel the exact size of any meal I had eaten, as it lay deposited in my stomach. Everything I took into my stomach seemed to weigh like lead, and constantly bear down so hard, that it made me continually miserable and unwell. We stayed at Baltimore a few days, when our furloughs, which had been made out at Annapolis, were handed to us, and we started for home--two months' pay and our ration commutation money having been paid to us before we left Annapolis. CHAPTER VI. AT HOME.--NOTHING BUT A SKELETON.--A GOOD IMITATION OF LAZARUS.--A DIGRESSION UPON THE SUBJECT OF SLEEPLESSNESS.--A WELL-INTENDED FRAUD ON A HOSPITAL NURSE.--RETURN OF SLEEP.--IMPROVEMENT IN HEALTH.--STOMACH THE ONLY DIFFICULTY.--A YEAR PASSES.--STOMACH WORSE.--CONSTANT HEADACHE.--MUCH DEBILITATED.--AWFUL SUFFERING.--BODILY AGONY DEBILITATES THE MIND.--SUFFERINGS INTOLERABLE.--PHYSICIANS AND REMEDIES TRIED WITHOUT AVAIL.--FORLORN HOPE AND LAST RESORT.--BETTER.--DOUBTS AS TO TREATMENT.--SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED.--UNCOMPLIMENTARY REMARKS CONCERNING AN M. D.--UNCOMFORTABLE DISCOVERIES AND REFLECTIONS.