The whole field gave evidence of having, at different times and in different parts, been camped upon by infantry, artillery, and cavalry--and everywhere evidences of military occupation were visible in the shape of broken bottles, dilapidated canteens, dippers and plates, and remnants of worn-out shoes, coats, blouses, pants, and harness, forgotten tent-stakes, sink holes and caved-in wells. While overhead and around, unnoticed and unmolested, on lazy wing sailed the huge turkey-buzzard, scenting the dead carcase and decayed garbage from afar, and patiently biding the absence of man from its vicinity ere he descended to gorge himself therewith. I noticed a great variety of wild flowers in the fields, some of which were very beautiful. A species of cactus grows wild here; but is a very inferior kind. Wild garlic is also to be met with everywhere. A coarse grass, called Bear's grass, grows in bunches here, the leaves of which, when subjected to a roasting process in hot ashes, are uncommonly strong, and take the place of small ropes and cords with the natives, who apply it in a variety of ways, from the suspension of a dead pig to the tying of a shoe, or temporarily supplying the place of a lost button. From the centre of these bunches of Bears grass a stem five or six feet high shoots up in the spring-time, which is crowned with a crest of yellow flowers very beautiful to behold at a distance. A few days' experience of camp-life gave me a better knowledge of its comforts and discomforts, its tribulations and my philosophy. It was the middle of August, and the weather very warm. The first night of my abode in my new quarters was undisturbed from any cause, from the fact that I was tired after the sea-voyage. But the second night I was destined to feel some of the annoyances to be endured by campaigners in warm climates. Mosquitoes revel in this congenial atmosphere, as do also the blue-tail fly, and a species of biting insect like the common house-fly, while gallinippers, gnats, ants, and biting sand-fleas, (which play second fiddle to the old-fashioned iron-clad chaps, their bites making one squirm as if twinged by a bad conscience,) and grey-backs, all attack the hapless sleeper in succession, in a body, by detail, in squads, battalion,--in brigades drawn up in echelon--in front, flank and rear. They scale the walls of his fortress in the very teeth of a fierce cannonade of imprecations--burst the barriers of bedclothes--penetrate the abatti of woolen socks and tightly-tied drawers--and though, even after gaining the inside of your works, they are subjected to a deadly cross-fire of small arms, yet they invariably "attain the object of their reconnoissance." The bayonet is powerless against them, and they never draw off from the attack till fairly exhausted with the feast of blood.