"Tempora mutantur," says Horace, but I very much doubt if "nos" (that is such as are alive of 'nos') "mutamur in illis." The Army is very different from what it was in my day--sadly changed indeed! It will hardly be believed, but I have dined with officers who, after drinking a few glasses of wine, called for their coffee. If Waterloo was to fight over again, no rational man can suppose that we would gain it after such symptoms of degeneracy. Such lady-like gentlemen would certainly take out vinaigrettes and scream at a charge of the Old Guard, and be horrified at the sight of a set of grim-looking Frenchmen, all grin and gash, whisker and moustache. I was not, however, allowed to enjoy the festivities of Fort Wellington, such as they were. The enemy being extended along the line of the right bank of the St. Lawrence, and the Lake of the Thousand Islands, it was necessary that we also should extend and occupy points that might enable us to keep up a communication, and maintain a correspondence with our rear. Besides it was considered highly expedient and necessary, that small bodies of the line should be stationed in defensible positions, to form a nucleus, in case of invasion, for the Indians and Militia to rally round and form upon. Accordingly, a garrison had to be maintained in a block-house in the woods of Gananoque, between Brockville and Kingston, and our Grenadier Company being ordered for that service, I was detached to accompany them. A block-house is a most convenient and easily constructed fort in a new country. The lower story is strongly built of stone, and the upper, which overhangs it about eighteen inches, (so that you can fire from above along the wall without being exposed,) is built of logs about a foot square. Both stories are pierced with loop-holes for musquetry, and in the upper are four portholes, to which are fitted four 24-pounder carronades, mounted naval fashion, the whole being surrounded with a strong loop-holed and flanked stoccade, and this makes a very fair protection for an inferior force, against a superior who are unprovided with a battering train, which of course in a few rounds would knock it to splinters.