This was a fact not to be disputed, but so wedded were we to ancient prejudices that we remained convinced that the shirt actually in wear, with all its additions at the end of an extra day or two, must still weigh less than the knapsack with a shirt in it; and upon those grounds we made a successful kick, and threw them off, not, however, until an experimental field-day had been ordered to establish them. The order required that each officer should parade in a knapsack, or something answering the same purpose, and it was amusing enough to see the expedients resorted to, to evade, without committing a direct breach of it. I remember that my apology for one on that occasion was slinging an empty black oil-skin haversack knapsack-ways, which looked so much like a newly-lanced blister on my back that it made both the vraws and the frogs stare. The attempt was never repeated. What a singular change did a short residence in that pestiferous place work in the appearance of our army! It was with our regiment as with others; one month saw us embark a thousand men at Deal, in the highest health and spirits, and the next month saw us land, at the same place, with about seven hundred men, carrying to hospital, or staggering under disease. I cannot shake off that celebrated Walcheren fever without mentioning what may or may not be a peculiarity in it;--that a brother-officer and I experienced a return of it within a day of each other, after a lapse of five years, and again, within a week, after the lapse of the following three years. As my heart had embarked for the Peninsula with the 1st battalion, although my body (for the reasons given) remained behind for a year, I shall, with the reader's permission, follow the first, as being in the more interesting position of the two; and although, under these circumstances, I am not permitted to speak in the first person singular until the two shall be again united, yet whatever I do speak of I have heard so often and so well authenticated, that I am enabled to give it with the same confidence as if I had been an eye-witness. "A LAY OF LOVE FOR LADY BRIGHT."