Who has not passed down Blackfriars-road of an evening? and who has not seen, in the vicinity of Rowland Hill's chapel, at least half a dozen gentlemen presiding each over his highly polished tin case, surmounted by variegated lamps, and singing out that most enchanting of all earthly melodies to an empty stomach, that has got a sixpence in its clothly casement, "hot, all hot!" The whole concern is not above the size of a drum, and, in place of dealing in its empty sounds, rejoices in mutton-pies, beef-steaks, and kidney-puddings, "hot, all hot!" If the gentlemen had but followed us to the wars, how they would have been worshipped in such a night, even without their lamps. In these days of invention, when every suggestion for ameliorating the condition of the soldier is thankfully received, I, as one, who have suffered severely by outward thawings and inward gnawings, beg to found my claim to the gratitude of posterity, by proposing that, when a regiment is ordered on active service, the drummers shall deposit their sheep-skins and their cat-o'-nine tails in the regimental store-room, leaving one cat only in the keeping of the drum major. And in lieu thereof that each drummer be armed with a _tin drum_ full of "hot, all hot!" and that whenever the quarter-master fails to find the _cold_, the odd cat in the keeping of the drum-major shall be called upon to remind him of his duty. If the simple utterance of the three magical monosyllables already mentioned did not rally a regiment more rapidly round the given point than a tempest of drums and trumpets, I should be astonished, and as we fought tolerably well on empty stomachs, I should like to see what we would not do on kidney puddings, "hot, all hot!" On the 19th we were again in motion at day-light, and both on that day and the next, although we did not come into actual contact with the enemy, we picked up a good many stragglers. We were obliged, however, to come to a halt for several days from downright want, for the country was a desert, and we had out-marched our supplies. Until they came up, therefore, we remained two days in one village, and kept creeping slowly along the foot of the Sierra, until our commissariat was sufficiently re-inforced to enable us to make another dash.